One would think, for all the recent public outcry, that the Delaware is the only river in Pennsylvania. So what if it’s the longest, free-flowing, un-dammed course of fresh water in North America? Who cares that a University of Delaware report concludes that the 330-mile long waterway generates $22 billion for the regional economy? There happens to be another, rather large, really important river in Pennsylvania – The Susquehanna. (more…)
Archive for the ‘fresh water pollution’ Category
A Tale of Two Watersheds
November 22, 2011EPA Announces Congressionally-Directed Fracking Study Plan
November 4, 2011“EPA Announces Final Study Plan to Assess Hydraulic Fracturing/Congressionally directed study will evaluate potential impacts on drinking water“
Press Release Date: 11/03/2011
Contact Information: Cathy Milbourn milbourn.cathy@epa.gov 202-564-7849 202-564-4355
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced its final research plan on hydraulic fracturing. At the request of Congress, EPA is working to better understand potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water resources. Natural gas plays a key role in our nation’s clean energy future and the Obama Administration is committed to ensuring that we continue to leverage this vital resource responsibly. (more…)
Support Clean Water Candidates in Pennsylvania on November 8th
October 31, 2011VOTE FOR FRACTIVIST-FRIENDLY LEADERSHIP
A recent post on Protest Shale Gas Drilling informed me about a new Facebook page, Marcellus at the Polls. The new page is a compilation of candidate information, a consummately useful 2011 environmental voter’s guide to PA, NY, OH, and WV – the Marcellus Shale states. Click on “docs” at the top of the page to learn more about Fractivist friendly candidates in your neck of the woods. You’ll find a wealth of links, current comments and topical information. Then, be sure to exercise your franchise at the polls on Tuesday, November 8, 2011. (more…)
Delaware Riverkeeper Won’t Support “Politically Palatable” Citizens Commission Report
October 21, 2011The following is a press release from The Delaware Riverkeeper Network:
Delaware Riverkeeper Resigns From Citizens Marcellus Shale Commission
For Immediate Release, Contact: Maya K. van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper, 215 369 1188 ext 102
October 20, 2011, Bristol, PA – Days before the Citizens Marcellus Shale Commission is scheduled to release its final report and recommendations, Maya van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper, resigned from her post as a Commissioner for the group. (more…)
Save The Delaware, Seriously
October 5, 2011UPDATE: The DRBC announced today that it will postpone the October 21 meeting date to vote on the new gas regulations. The meeting is now scheduled for November 21, 2011.
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ORIGINAL POST: The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) will vote on October 21, 2011 whether to open the “Special Protection Waters” of The Upper Delaware to industrial shale gas drilling. If new DRBC regulations are passed, the current moratorium on hydraulic fracturing will come to an end, and fracking will begin in earnest in the Delaware River watershed region. (more…)
Frack U.! Governor Corbett Supports Drilling on PA State College Campuses
September 19, 2011UPDATE [November 8, 2011] On Sunday, November 6, Bill Schackner reported in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, that the Cal U Student Association had been quietly negotiating a mineral lease deal. Read the details in his article, Drilling on Campus: Marcellus Shale boom puts colleges at crossroads It’s the first of two parts. Here is Part II: Corporate funding of Marcellus Shale studies at universities raises alarms by Reid R. Frazier and Olivia Garber
ORIGINAL POST:
When Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett [R] first spoke of leasing state college and university land to gas drillers, he was addressing a meeting of the Pennsylvania Association of Councils of Trustees at Edinboro University in March, 2011. He was suggesting a way to soften the economic blow of $650 million in proposed cuts to Public Higher Education, cuts which amounted to a stunning 50% off the prior year’s budget. Cuts that were in addition to the universally repellant $550 million already slashed from Basic Education funding. When Corbett made his seemingly casual suggestion, however, he wasn’t grasping at political straws. He was sowing the seeds of new fiscal policy. (more…)
Raising Elijah by Sandra Steingraber: The Thinking Mom’s Environmental Manifesto
September 13, 2011What’s a mother to do? You can buy organic milk and skip the Happy Meal, but how do you protect tender young bodies from air pollution? How to you prevent them from handloading toxic chemicals like formaldehyde from pressure-treated wood on the playground? Dr. Sandra Steingraber is raising the alarm in Raising Elijah: Protecting Our Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis (Da Capo Press). It might be the most important parenting book you’ll ever read. (more…)
Toxic Floodwaters In Pennsylvania Raise New Questions About Fracking – Updated
September 10, 2011UPDATE, September 23, 2011:
Since posting below, PA DEP officials have gone on record insisting that “no chemicals” used in hydraulic fracturing or toxic wastewater produced were spilled during the recent catastrophic flooding in Pennsylvania, which occurred as a result of back-to-back hurricanes Irene and Lee. State officials have also suggested that the photo linked in the initial post (below) is inauthentic. Okay. But the fact is, we have only their word for it. Scott Detrow reports in StateImpact that gas drillers weren’t required to report any incidents due to a “loophole” in state regulatory policy. I know, right? How dumb is that? And these are the guys who are going to protect The Delaware River Watershed, drinking water source for 15.6 million people. (more…)
Frack-to-School: Several Pennsylvania School Districts Lease Land To Gas Drillers
August 31, 2011Pennsylvania’s smallest – and most vulnerable – citizens deserve clean air and methane-free water fountains when they go to school, right? Are we seriously at the point where we’re knowingly exposing school children to toxic air pollution, potential water contamination and massive truck traffic? Apparently, we are. (more…)
Fracking: Another Bad Word Your Kid Picked Up at Camp?
August 20, 2011The kids are home! Camp was great, and once again there’s a wait at Ruby’s Diner. It’s that pleasant interim between peak summer and back-to-school. Last week, on a trip to New England, my husband took us on a tour of the overnight camp where he spent six glorious summers in his youth. It was heartwarming to see him share his memories with our camp-aged son as he endeavored to warm him up to the idea of maybe going there, too. It was all I could do not to go around picking up the wet towels. I could totally see why it’s one of his “happy places.” (more…)
Frack Waste Decimates Stand of West Virginia Forest
August 17, 2011In a controlled test conducted by the US Forest Service initiated in 2008, frack waste was applied to a contained 1/4-acre of deciduous forest in West Virginia. I’ve been saying it for months, “Test, Baby, Test.” By that, I meant independent baseline testing (more…)
Mudslinging or Mud Blowout: Susquehanna County, PA – Updated
August 5, 2011The once pristine “high value” Laurel Lake Creek north of Allentown in Silver Lake Township, Susquehanna County is now the site of the latest Fraccident in Eastern Pennsylvania, according to Department of Environmental Protection officials. The persistent mud blowout was caused when Laser Northeast Gathering Co., LLP crews were tunneling beneath the “protected” waterway to lay a gas pipeline on Friday, July 29, 2011. Mud continues gushing today, one week later. (more…)
Schuylkill County Marcellus Task Force Takes Proactive Approach
August 1, 2011The Schuylkill County Marcellus Task Force was established by the Schuylkill County Board of Commissioners in May 2011 to determine how they would deal with shale gas drilling issues. Last week, according to Leslie Richardson in republicanherald.com, the task force was talking roads, education, taxes and water withdrawals with Lt. Governor Jim Cawley. It’s not so much a matter of drilling in Schuylkill County, as the shale is much deeper there, rather it’s concern over pollution, truck traffic and jobs. The county has one landfill that accepts cuttings and other solid waste, and in June, 2011, Rausch Creek Land LP of Valley View. PA applied to withdrawal up to 100,000 gallons from an abandoned mine in Porter Township for hydrofracking operations elsewhere in the state. (more…)
DEP Suggests New Rules! to Marcellus Advisory Commission
July 12, 20111,000 Feet
That’s how close to your water supply (water well, surface water intake, or reservoir), a gas company could legally frack a gas well, unless waived by operator.
500 Feet
That’s how close to your private water well a gas company could legally drill.
When a gas well is hydraulically fractured, the drill bit goes down vertically for a few thousand feet, then it turns horizontally. It travels sideways for up to a mile before a charge is detonated to blast water, sand and chemicals into the rock.
The last time I checked, a mile was 5,280 feet. (more…)
Stray Shallow Gas a Challenge for Drillers, Water Drinkers in Northeastern PA
July 11, 2011An article by Times-Tribune staff writer Laura Legere on Friday entitled “Stray Gas plagues NEPA Marcellus wells” drew a lot of thoughtful and detailed comments online. Mostly, the discussion revolved the causes of local water pollution, shallow, thermogenic methane migration and cement casings. Yet it seems all sides, including the experts cited in Legere’s actual reporting, acknowledge that there’s a lot more gas in the water up there now that fracking has begun in earnest. What’s more, the problem is a riddle that’s far from being solved. My head starts to spin as try to comprehend all the social and geological complexities of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Then, a single comment, clearly written from the heart, shifts the paradigm for me, yet again: (more…)
Fraccidents Happen, Especially in Eastern PA
July 6, 2011In 2010, drillers spent $33.5 million literally drilling the message that fracking is safe into the public’s collective pretty head. Horizontal hydraulic fracturing, however, is not an exact science. The end product, natural gas, is indeed a significantly cleaner burning fossil fuel, as it has fewer carbon emissions than oil or coal, but the process of blasting it out of shale a mile underground remains totally fraught.
The Fraccidents Map is the interactive website you hate to love. I check it like an analyst watches over stocks. I squint at the tiny pictures and contemplate rural landscapes tainted by gas drilling pollution. (more…)
The End of Country by Seamus McGraw: A Great Fracking Read!
July 3, 2011You may already know what fracking is, but The End of Country (Random House) deftly illuminates the way it is done. Set in a small town in the Endless Mountains of Pennsylvania, where gas drillers have come a knockin’ along with grand promises and grave pitfalls, author Seamus McGraw recounts how fracking has turned his mother’s quiet rural community, and his family legacy, inside out. 
(more…)
Keep Tap Water Safe 