tagged w/ gas drilling
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http://youtu.be/nCyHS7fKmXI
Another consequence of deregulation has apparently just boiled over in Bradford County, Pa.
video-(Bradford County PA, 90 miles west of the Delaware River Basin, shows us the face of shale gas drilling's industrialization in ruined air and drinking water. Photographed by Jane Prettyman (with apologies for soviet camera), host of 'Public Comment' (pubcomm.blogspot.com). Music: "Wheels" by Jason Shaw (Creative Commons) and "Sacrifice" by Lisa Gerrard and Pieter Bourke.
Also see TV news report on Bradford County gas well blowout in same area where this film was made, causing a massive spill of chemical-laced frack flowback waste water contaminating Towanda Creek that feeds into Suqsuehanna River more videos below)-figgdimension
Operators have lost control of a natural gas well in rural northern Pennsylvania, leading to a spill of fluids used in the drilling process.
Bradford County emergency officials say thousands of gallons of tainted water have spilled from a Chesapeake Energy Corp. well site near Canton since early Wednesday.
As of 1:50 pm., the spill was still out of control, spilling "thousands and thousands" of likely contaminated water over fields and into at least one stream, per the reports, prompting the evacuation of seven families, thus far. Updated reports indicate the water started pouring out at 11:45 pm last night.
The "stream" is apparently the Towanda Creek, which feeds into the Susquehanna River, which in turn feeds into the Chesapeake Bay.
http://www.grist.org/...
Reuters describes the spill as "uncontrollable" as of 3:52 pm. The local news reports describe attempts to control the spill as a "Large scale operation" with a "widespread impact." There appear to be no reports providing the actual amount of fluids spilled at this time.
Pennsylvania has already been under the watch of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and concerns that the practice of this fracking has caused a risk to human life as well as the environment and has required regulators to maintain regular sampling of local water supplies. Pennsylvania is also the only state which has allowed this wastewater to be partially treated and returned to local rivers and community drinking water.
My Dad and I used to fish in the Susquehanna for bass when I was a kid. We've hunted in Bradford County. Now the "shale boom" has turned the area and others in PA. upside down with newly minted millionaires selling their age-old wooded tracts of property to the highest bidder, pretty much heedless of the environmental impact.
Chesapeake Energy Corp (you have to love the irony) has this to say about their unregulated mishap:
Chesapeake said a piece of equipment failed late Tuesday while the well was being hydraulically fractured, or fracked. In the fracking process, millions of gallons of water, along with chemical additives and sand, are injected at high pressure down the well bore to break up the shale and release the gas.
But not to worry, trumpets the Business Insider.
The event has had no impact on Chesapeake energy shares, which are up more than the broader market, 2.75%, and natural gas prices are higher.
With remarkable synchronicity, known energy magnate and self-promoting blowhard Boone Pickens picked a poor day to criticize President Obama's recent statements of concern about hydraulic fracturing:
TULSA, Okla. - Billionaire energy magnate T. Boone Pickens on Wednesday defended a controversial natural gas drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, a day after President Barack Obama expressed concern that the process could pollute groundwater.
"That's the first time I ever heard him saying anything about fracking," Pickens said of the drilling method that uses water, sand and other additives to free natural gas underground. "The president, I'm sure, knows very little about fracking.
And Boone knows so much about it. I'm sure he thought the anniversary of the Gulf oil disaster was just exquisite timing for his paean to the virtues of gas drilling.
Pickens, who spoke Wednesday at the 2011 Sustainable Enterprise Conference in Tulsa, said out of the 800,000 wells that have been fracked in the Southwest, he didn't know of a single lawsuit or complaint that arose from the process.
"I've fracked over 3,000 wells myself; they fracked on my ranch yesterday,"
I won't hold my breath waiting for Pickens to comment on this spill. One thing seems clear: these "concerned billionaires" and corporations have no compunction whatsoever about fracking us all.
Update: news report from the local TV station, it was still not under control as of Wednesday night.
http://www.wnep.com/...
The news report is also instructive in its depiction of local resident reaction as "cautiously optimistic." No detractors of Chesapeake are put on camera.
Further Update: As of 3 pm Thursday it appears the well is still not under control, although they are routing the poisonous water into containment vessels. Chesapeake is considering a "top kill" technique to plug the well. They have halted the fracking procedure in seven wells, temporarily.
http://www.reuters.com/...
Originally posted to Dartagnan on Wed Apr 20, 2011 at 03:04
http://youtu.be/AqiLyK0JJfw?hd=1http://youtu.be/nCyHS7fKmXI
Another consequence of deregulation has apparently just... more
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By Josh Fox - Director of GASLAND
This week, Teddy Borawski, the chief oil and gas geologist for the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) and a member of Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett's administration, serving in an official capacity, and on the record, compared my Sundance award-winning and Oscar-nominated documentary film GASLAND to Nazi propaganda stating "Goebbels would be proud." The slander was the latest in a series of smears and misinformation about the film and character attacks on me.
This kind of hateful speech shows a contempt for history, for truth, for science and sets a dangerous precedent in our state's government. Such slanderous mudslinging has no place in any rational or adult debate on ANY topic, let alone the most important issue facing the state in decades - natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale.
When one speaks violence, he degrades himself and his fellow man. When that person represents the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, he violates the fabric of our civic trust, delegitimizes the government he represents and opens the door to madness. The Corbett administration has thrown the dialogue on Marcellus drilling into the gutter and it is it up to the Corbett administration to get it out.
I made the film GASLAND out of a geniune care and love for the state of Pennsylvania. The film was designed to bring to light something that we were by and large overlooking -- the extreme harm and danger of Fracking for Natural Gas, as it was taking place across the nation. To make the film, myself and a dedicated team of five people were working for no pay, day and night, without a major media company behind the film and without any assurances that anyone would see the film outside of the Delaware River basin.
The film GASLAND has been thoroughly vetted, fact checked, verified and backed up by true journalistic review and science and we stand behind it and the incredibly brave Americans in it 100%.
GASLAND has helped forge a movement of in Pennsylvania, New York, and increasingly worldwide. Millions of people saw the film when it aired on HBO. In addition, I have toured to over 100 cities in the United States. Everywhere I go, I hear the complaints, concerns, outrage and dismay of the citizens facing the driller's invasion.
But instead of engaging in a real dialogue on the issues, the Pennsylvania government and the gas industry have mounted successive attacks against the honest journalism of the film. I and my team have been branded terrorists, extremists, communists, traitors, liars and now, Nazis. NAZIS!!!!!!
The state deserves better.
Continue Reading at:
http://dcbureau.org/201103231311/Bulldog-Blog/gasland-director-responds-to-attack-by-pennsylvania-official.htmlBy Josh Fox - Director of GASLAND
This week, Teddy Borawski, the chief oil and gas... more
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Please read up on fracking!
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?_r=1&hp
The link to today's NYT article, "Regulation lax as gas wells' tainted water hits rivers" is a good start with great visual aids.
The Josh Fox documentary(available @Netflix), "Gasland", nominated for an Academy award, is another good place to learn more about fracking.
Cheney made sure that the gas industry is not regulated! No one can even formally complain about it! And guess what company is involved with the drilling!
Our water supplies are in peril anyway - why let corporate gas ruin what we have left?Please read up on fracking!... more
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"The New York State Assembly voted 93 to 43 Monday night to place a temporary moratorium on a controversial type of natural gas exploration that combines hydraulic fracturing with horizontal drilling. The goal is to give the state more time to address safety and environmental concerns.
The Senate passed a similar bill in August, and the legislation now awaits the signature of Gov. David Paterson."
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/n-y-assembly-approves-fracking-moratorium/
Please urge him to sign this by calling his office at 518-474-8390.
This is a great victory! It just shows the power of the PEOPLE!
Join the Organic Movement:
http://current.com/groups/organicgreen/"The New York State Assembly voted 93 to 43 Monday night to place a temporary... more
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Protests held today in several states including Arkansas against shale gas fracking. It's a process used to get natural gas out of the shale. In Little Rock a small group at the state capitol gathered to express their outrage over what they say are the negative effects of fracking.
Armed with signs that read "I fought for my country in Vietnam I should not have to fight for clean drink water!" and "clean water is more valuable than gas" Arkansans fed up with a natural gas drilling process known as fracking joined forces on the steps of the State Capitol Wednesday to send a message and raise awareness about hydraulic-fracking.
Donna Adolph, President of Arkansans for Gas Drilling Accountability says, "It's a process of extracting natural gas from shale layers underground with high pressure water, sand, and very toxic chemicals."
A process Adolph, says is posing major health risks.
Adolph says, "All over the world we are having water contamination from this process, air pollution that is unbelievable. The toxins cause cancers, all kinds of neurological diseases and especially in small children."
Andy Cheshier, President of C.A.R.E., Citizens Against Resource Exploitation, says "The chemicals they are using we really don't know what they are because they say they are proprietary. They won't tell us. Thanks to the "Halibut Loophole" they don't have to tell us what these chemicals are. I can tell you they are very dangerous. There are up to 900 of them we know now.
The protestors fear salt water injection wells used to dispose of the water from the fracking process are causing earthquakes.
Read More: http://globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com/2010/11/world-protest-against-shale-gas.htmlProtests held today in several states including Arkansas against shale gas fracking.... more
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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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My friend and I are ecoconscious puppet makers. We make funny videos featuring our gorgeous, handmade in the USA, designer sock puppets called Socketts. We recently made one called "Natural Gas" in which Socketts star in a ‘tongue in cheek’ anti-gas drilling video. At the end of the video is a brief statement against gas drilling and a list of agencies people can contact for more information. All the agencies listed are a matter of public record and of course so are their websites. We contacted Earthjustice an environmental group who is against gas drilling. Earthjustice said they really wanted to see the video. We happily obliged sending them the link as soon as we had it.
About 10 minutes later a call came in to my studio from Earthjustice saying they didn’t
want to be listed as a resource because they had “respectable lawyers” (isn’t that an oxymoron?) working for them and they didn’t think the video was respectable enough for them. The real issue is that there is actually three sides to this issue Pro Frackers, Anti-frackers, and apparently the Agencies. In my opinion they should be grateful that average citizens care enough to get involved and if these agencies cared a little more they would all be holding contests to see who could actually come up with the most provocative video on the issue.
To make them happy, I put a disclaimer in both the description and on the resource page letting everyone know that the agencies listed were simply a resource and none of them were cool enough to design a video that funny. I thought you might like to see what the big deal was all about. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mT_fYrfGKs
Sincerely yours,
Tiger Kandel, President
Tigercandy Arts, IncMy friend and I are ecoconscious puppet makers. We make funny videos featuring our... more
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By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
BP oil has been spilling into the Gulf of Mexico for more than two months, and while attention has focused there, deepwater oil drilling is just one of many risky methods of energy extraction that industry is pursuing. Gasland, Josh Fox’s documentary about the effects of hydrofracking, a new technique for extracting natural gas, was broadcast this week on HBO. In the film, Fox travels across the country visiting families whose water has turned toxic since gas companies began drilling in their area.
“So many people were quick to respond to our requests to be interviewed about fracking that I could tell instantly that this was a national problem—and nobody had really talked enough about it,” Fox told The Nation this week.
Natural gas
In Washington, even green groups like the Sierra Club have been pushing natural gas as a clean alternative to fuels like coal; reports like Fox’s suggest that the environmental costs of obtaining that gas are not yet clear. Besides water contamination, natural gas opponents are also documenting environmental damage to air quality. Like the problems with deepwater oil drilling, which became apparent after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, the dangers of hydrofracking could go unchecked until disaster strikes.
And both deepwater drilling and hydrofracking are symptoms of the greater crisis threatening the country: as energy resources become harder to extract, energy companies are taking greater risks to get at the valuable fuels.
Drilling on government land
As Fox documents, new gas wells are popping up like gopher holes all over the country, on private and public lands. Just this week, Earthjustice, an environmental advocacy law group, challenged the Bureau of Land Management’s decision to allow drilling in a southwestern Colorado mountain range, the Colorado Independent reports.
“The HD Mountains are the last tiny, little corner of the San Juan Basin not yet drilled for natural gas development,” Jim Fitzgerald, a farmer, told Earthjustice. “This whole area depends on the HD Mountains watersheds. Drilling could have disastrous effects upon them.”
From coast to coast
Coloradans are not the only ones pushing back against drilling. In The Nation, Kara Cusolito writes about the problems Dimock, PA, has faced:
After a stray drill bit banged four wells in 2008…weird things started happening to people’s water: some flushed black, some orange, some turned bubbly. One well exploded, the result of methane migration, and residents say elevated metal and toluene levels have ruined twelve others. Then, in September 2009, about 8,000 gallons of hazardous drilling fluids spilled into nearby fields and creeks.
After that second incident, fifteen families began a lawsuit against Cabot Oil and Gas, the gas company that’s dominating that area. In The American Prospect, Alex Halperin wrote a couple of months back about efforts to fight back against natural gas drilling in Ithaca, NY.
Regulation
One of the problems with hydrofracking is that it’s poorly regulated right now. No one except the natural gas companies know what goes into the “fracking fluid” that they pour into wells to help bubble the gas up to the surface. A loophole in the Safe Water Drinking Act also exempted the practice from regulation.
That situation could be changing, however. As Amy Westervelt writes at Earth Island Journal:
“Thanks in large part to the work done by a handful of journalists and angry residents over the past couple of years, the EPA is finally looking into fracking more seriously. In fact, they’re looking into it so comprehensively the energy companies are getting worried. It’s worth noting here that all the big oil guys have a big stake in natural gas drilling, and many of them have contractual loopholes with the smaller companies that own the gas drilling leases that if fracking is taken off the table as a legitimate drilling process, they’re out.”
Like deepwater oil drilling, fracking is a relatively new endeavor, the risks of which are not fully understood. Unlike that type of drilling, though, the opportunity still exists to create a framework in which the companies will have some accountability to the environments and communities that they threaten.
Future present
Besides regulating the industries who are providing energy now, the environmental community needs to keep pressing towards a future where the country does not depend on fossil fuels like oil and gas to run our world. This week, at the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit, thousands of people are considering how to fight against problems like these.
Ahmina Maxey, for instance, is a member of the Zero Waste Detroit Coalition. “We are planning, next Saturday, the Clean Air, Good Jobs, Justice march to the incinerator to demand that the city of Detroit clean up its air,” she told Democracy Now!
Green Detroit
As Elizabeth DiNovella writes for The Progressive, Detroit is working towards green solutions to some of its problems. DiNovella reports:
“Detroit’s population has shrunk to about a quarter of what it was forty or fifty years ago, leaving lots of open green space. But neighborhood groups are transforming these vacant lots into community gardens. Seven years ago there were 8o community gardens, consisting of neighborhood gardens, backyard patches, and school gardens. By 2009, there were 800 community gardens. This year there are 1200, including some urban farms.”
“As far as I’m concerned, Detroit is ground zero for the sustainability movement,” writes Ron Williams for Free Speech TV. He explains:
“What we need now is a collaborative effort that could echo around the world. An Urban Green Lab. What possible better stage than the 11th largest city in the United States which is experiencing Depression-level economic conditions? Let’s take sustainability home. Collectively we have everything the people of Detroit need to build their city anew. Their solutions are likely to be the very same solutions every community will need in some form in the years ahead.”
Here’s hoping ideas like this take root.By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
BP oil has been spilling into the Gulf of... more
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Texas environmental regulators are set to release results of widespread air testing on the Barnett Shale.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality plans to publish the results Wednesday afternoon in Fort Worth.
Fears of pollution over the 5,000-square-mile North Texas gas field have been heightened after regulators found elevated amounts of the cancerous chemical benzene near the small town of Dish. Other towns on the shale — which lies beneath Dallas, Fort Worth and about 20 counties — also have expressed concerns about gas-related emissions.
The head of the TCEQ's toxicology department and other top officials will announce the findings.
http://www.tceq.state.tx.us/goto/barnettshaleTexas environmental regulators are set to release results of widespread air testing on... more
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The earth moved here on June 2. It was the first recorded earthquake in this Texas town's 140-year history _ but not the last. There have been four small earthquakes since, none with a magnitude greater than 2.8. The most recent ones came Tuesday night, just as the City Council was meeting in an emergency session to discuss what to do about the ground moving.The earth moved here on June 2. It was the first recorded earthquake in this Texas... more
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To pass the legistlation to many's new opinion drilling and nuclear for the GOP and the democrats get some incentives for solar and wind energy. Somethings moving through congress we might not all like all of the deal, but things ARE happening people!!!!To pass the legistlation to many's new opinion drilling and nuclear for the GOP... more
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The Roan Plateau in Colorado has become the subject of disputed real estate, much of it public land that the Federal government's Bureau of Land Management is selling to energy companies interested in drilling for oil and gas in the mountainous region. John McDaniel writes, in his contribution to the Christian Science Monitor (14 May 2008), that the B.L.M. have offered to open up 73,000 acres -- or 70-percent -- of the Roan Plateau Planning Area for oil and gas drilling, a decision initiated late last year.
Deer and elk hunters who have pursued game in the Roan Plateau area between the Colorado Rockies to the Utah border, have aligned with environmentalists to voice expression against the B.L.M.'s plan to sell once-protected areas of the Roan Plateau for energy development.The Roan Plateau in Colorado has become the subject of disputed real estate, much of... more
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