Fracking - where is it headed ?

[Griff]

Lots of borderline criminal stuff going on here. A couple local lawyers were representing gas companies and land-owners and buying property to lease to the gas companies... They didn't even get dis(?)barred even though they clearly had a conflict of interest.

[Lamplighter]

And the damages to water resources continues,
but now EPA had joined the friggin fracking fracus.

LA Times
Neela Banerjee, Washington Bureau
December 8, 2011

EPA says 'fracking' probably contaminated well water in Wyoming

The Environmental Protection Agency said that hydraulic fracturing,
a controversial natural gas drilling process, probably contaminated well water in Wyoming,
a finding sure to roil the debate about expanding natural gas drilling around the country.

The EPA's new draft report found dangerous amounts of benzene in a monitoring well
near the town of Pavillion, in central Wyoming.

The EPA is conducting a comprehensive study about the possible effect
of "fracking" on water resources, but initial results are not expected until late 2012.
As a result, the Pavillion report may not give either side in the fracking debate
the conclusive answers they seek.

But the EPA report is the first that uses multiple, on-the-ground samples
to determine the effect of fracking on underground water sources in areas of oil and gas development.

"Alternative explanations were carefully considered to explain individual sets of data,"
the EPA report said of the presence of synthetic chemicals found in the Wyoming water.
"However, when considered together with other lines of evidence, the data indicate
likely impact to groundwater that can be explained by hydraulic fracturing."

[Griff]

The Feds are looking into the Dimock situation after the state DEP essentially sided with the gas company. I'd been pretty skeptical of the land-owner claims assuming some level of neutrality at DEP. We'll see what the Feds say. Dem President and Rep Governor somebody or everybody is letting political expediency guide what should be a clear issue of environmental testing. Yay for election years...

There is also another new fracking method coming on line that is more an expansion of the old technique than a less controversial technology. Interesting times...

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by Griff

Lots of borderline criminal stuff going on here.

In much the same way as the Atlantic ocean is a border between North America and Europe.

[Griff]

EPA: Water quality OK in Pa. gas drilling town
Contamination in Dimock wells within safe levels, it says

SCRANTON, Pa. -- Federal environmental regulators said Thursday that well water testing at 11 homes in a northeastern Pennsylvania village where a gas driller was accused of polluting the aquifer failed to show elevated levels of contamination.

The Environmental Protection Agency, which is sampling well water at dozens of homes in Dimock, Susquehanna County, said initial test results "did not show levels of contamination that could present a health concern."

Dimock has been at the center of a fierce debate over the environmental and public health impacts of Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale drilling industry.

State environmental regulators had previously determined that Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. contaminated the aquifer underneath homes along Carter Road in Dimock with explosive levels of methane gas. Residents who are suing Cabot assert their water is also polluted with drilling chemicals. Many other residents of Dimock say that the water is clean and that the plaintiffs are exaggerating problems with their wells to help their lawsuit.