Confirmed: Fracking Caused Ohio Earthquakes

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) has confirmed that a series of earthquakes in the state were caused by injecting leftover fracking fluids, "brine," deep into wells.

ODNR stated today:

Geologists believe induced seismic activity is extremely rare, but it can occur with the confluence of a series of specific circumstances. After investigating all available geological formation and well activity data, ODNR regulators and geologists found a number of co-occurring circumstances strongly indicating the Youngstown area earthquakes were induced. Specifically, evidence gathered by state officials suggests fluid from the Northstar 1 disposal well [a deep injection well primarily used for oil and gas fluid waste disposal] intersected an unmapped fault in a near-failure state of stress causing movement along that fault.

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/03/09-1

Peaceful Anti-Fracking Activists Pursued by FBI as 'Eco-Terrorists'

In recent years, the broad definition of 'eco-terrorism' has come to include environmentalist activities ranging from arson to setting mink free at fur farms to protests in front of the homes of corporate executives. Environmental activists have seen increased imprisonment (including maximum security sentences) for non-violent crimes.

Now, as the FBI suggests that 'eco-terrorism' is in decline, the Washington Post reports that the FBI has increased heavy surveillance of environmentalists including anti-fracking protesters.

Will Potter, who's work exposes the growing expansion of governmental prosecution of environmental activists, comments, among others.

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/03/11-2

Report: Fracking Could Cause a New Global Water Crisis

As the oil and gas industry heads more towards hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, to access resources, a new report out today from Food & Water Watch states that the process may become a global environmental and public health threat. Numerous communities in the U.S. where fracking has occurred have suffered long-term damage to their public water, as gas and oil companies leave a legacy of carcinogens and climate damage in their wake. The group says that the worldwide community must heed the warnings out of stricken communities in the U.S. and ban the practice.

Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch, states:

“Fracking is a dangerous American export that should be viewed critically by countries just starting to engage in the practice.  Modern drilling and fracking have caused widespread environmental and public health problems, as well as posed serious, long-term risks to vital water resources.”

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/03/07-2

The Big Fracking Bubble: The Scam Behind the Gas Boom

A profile of billionaire natural gas tycoon, Aubrey McClendon, by Rolling Stone's Jeff Goodell is out today and it paints a frightening, if not complex, picture of one of the men profiting most from the nation's insatiable appetite for fossil fuels.

Speaking to Goodell over a $100 glass of Bordeaux, McClendon, who is CEO of and co-founder of Chesapeake Energy, challenges the objections to the gas extraction practice known as 'fracking' in which huge amounts of pressurized water and chemicals are pumped down deep into shale formations in the earth to unlock trapped natural gas, forcing it to the surface.  "Where is the mushroom cloud?" McClendon asks. "Where are the dogs with one leg? Where are the people that have been maimed or hurt?"

He is referring to environmentalists and homeowners who claim that fracking is inherently dangerous and underregulated and that is leads to contamination of drinking water supplies and creates enormous amounts of surface waste in and around the communities where drilling operations exist.  If he really wanted to know where the damage was occuring, he might start with Josh Fox's documentary, GasLand, which has served as a rallying cry for anti-fracking activists.

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/03/01-3

John Mason - Landmark hydrofracking case in Otsego has local ties

A local law firm played a large part in recent developments that may have spelled the end of the road for the horizontal, high-volume hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking, industry in New York state.

The firm Rapport, Meyers defended Middlefield, Otsego County against a suit brought by Cooperstown Holstein Corp. George Rodenhausen, the lawyer who argued the case, called the rulings “decisive” for the hydrofracking industry in New York state. 

“If I were working for the industry, I would not appeal,” he said. “I would go to Pennsylvania.” Also working on the case were Victor Meyers, Cheryl Roberts and Victoria Polidoro.

Hydrofracking is a process that involves sending a mixture of water, sand and chemicals deep into the ground to break apart rocks to release natural gas that is captured and brought to the surface. There has been resistance to it because of the possibility of aquifer contamination from the fracking as well as from containment ponds of contaminated water.

Read More:

http://www.thedailymail.net/articles/2012/02/29/news/doc4f4dc494ae62d264645426.txt

Michael Gormley - Records show NY Gov Cuomo skipped tough questions

 The record of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's first online chat with New Yorkers shows the Democrat skipped an onslaught of increasingly pointed questions about hydraulic fracturing for natural gas and some other thorny issues and criticism.

Several New Yorkers asked during the chat to see all the questions, or a way to obtain them. Cuomo didn't answer.

Five months later, the record of the online town meeting was released under a Freedom of Information Law request by The Associated Press, submitted in September.

"We get requests for thousands of pages of documents and respond as quickly as possible," Cuomo spokesman Josh Vlasto said Thursday.

The Sept. 24 chat was part of Cuomo's transparency effort. He plans to release the records obtained by the AP to his Citizens Connects website Thursday (www.governor.ny.gov/citizenconnects/).

Read More:

http://www.statesman.com/news/nation/records-show-ny-gov-cuomo-skipped-tough-questions-2210267.html

Ellen Cantarow - Fracking Gets Its Own Occupy Movement

This is a story about water, the land surrounding it, and the lives it sustains. Clean water should be a right: there is no life without it. New York is what you might call a “water state.” Its rivers and their tributaries only start with the St. Lawrence, the Hudson, the Delaware, and the Susquehanna. The best known of its lakes are Great Lakes Erie and Ontario, Lake George, and the Finger Lakes. Its brooks, creeks, and trout streams are fishermen’s lore.

Far below this rippling wealth there’s a vast, rocky netherworld called the Marcellus Shale. Stretching through southern New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, the shale contains bubbles of methane, the remains of life that died 400 million years ago. Gas corporations have lusted for the methane in the Marcellus since at least 1967 when one of them plotted with the Atomic Energy Agency to explode a nuclear bombto unleash it. That idea died, but it’s been reborn in the form of a technology invented by Halliburton Corporation: high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing -- “fracking” for short.

Read More:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175492/

Karen McVeigh - Fracking will poison New York's drinking water, critics warn

• A former staffer at a state government agency responsible for regulating hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has warned that allowing the controversial gas drilling method in New York would lead to contamination of the state's aquifers and would poison its drinking water.

These stark warnings, issued by Paul Hetzler in a letter to an upstate newspaper, came as a current employee and union representative at the Department for Environmental Conservation (DEC) sounded alarm bells over the under-staffed agency's ability to monitor the industry and to deal with any emergencies if the plan goes ahead.

Fracking is the process of injecting a high-pressure mixture of sand, water and chemicals thousands of feet into hard shale rocks to shatter them and release the natural gas inside.

Read More:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jan/05/fracking-new-york-poison-claim

The Truth of the Dangers of Hydrofracking

Learn the truth about the many dangers of hydraulic fracturing in this DEC Hearing at the Rally Against Fracking in New York City, October 8th, 2011.

Explore more of the dangers and latest information at http://www.garynull.com/home/category/fracking

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility - Fracking Fluids - The Deeper, the Dirtier

CONTACT: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)

http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1534

November 17, 2011

New Study Finds Bottom-of-Barrel Flowback Fluids Much More Contaminated

WASHINGTON - November 17 - A new federal study finds wastewater from natural gas hydrofracturing has higher levels of contaminants the deeper in the storage tank the samples are taken.  These findings may be a key to preventing environmental damage from disposal of huge volumes of post-fracking water produced in the boom to exploit shale gas, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

Released November 16, 2011, the study by the U.S. Forest Service researchers is entitled “Chloride Concentration Gradients in Tank-Stored Hydraulic Fracturing Fluids Following Flowback.”  It analyzes 11,000 gallons of fracking fluids that flowed back to the surface and were stored in two 18-foot tall tanks after drilling in the Fernow Experimental Forest within West Virginia’s Monongahela National Forest.  

The key finding is that samples taken near the surface below the top scum are far less contaminated than samples taken deeper in the tank.  Increasingly higher levels of the tracked chemical, chloride (Cl), are found the deeper samples are drawn.  These differences are also visible to the naked eye:

Click to read more ...