Fracking - where is it headed ?

[Lamplighter]

This seems to be a particular issue for NE Pennsylvania.
Are any Dwellars involved with it yet ???


An OregonLive article
Cracking down on fracking
Published: Thursday, February 25, 2010, 5:00 AM *** Updated: Wednesday, February 24, 2010, 2:17 PM
By Amy Goodman

Mike Markham of Colorado has an explosive problem: His tap water catches fire. Markham demonstrates this in a new documentary, "Gasland," which just won the Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize. Director Josh Fox films Markham as he runs his kitchen faucet, holding a cigarette lighter up to the running water. After a few seconds, a ball of fire erupts out of the sink, almost enveloping Markham's head.

The source of the flammable water, and the subject of "Gasland," is the mining process called hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking."

Fracking is used to access natural-gas and oil reserves buried thousands of feet below the ground. Companies like Halliburton drill down vertically, then send the shaft horizontally, crossing many small, trapped veins of gas and oil. Explosive charges are then set off at various points in the drill shaft, causing what Fox calls "mini-earthquakes." These fractures spread underground, allowing the gas to flow back into the shaft to be extracted. To force open the fractures, millions of gallons of liquid are forced into the shaft at very high pressure.

Drillers do not have to reveal the chemical cocktail, thanks to a slew of exemptions given to the industry, most notably in the 2005 Energy Policy Act, which actually granted the fracking industry a specific exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act.

There is virtually no federal oversight of fracking, leaving the budget-strapped states to do the job with a patchwork of disparate regulations. They are no match for the major, multinational drilling and energy companies that are exploiting the political goal of "energy independence." The nonprofit news Web site ProPublica.org found that, out of 31 states examined, 21 have no regulations specific to hydraulic fracturing, and none requires the companies to report the amount of the toxic fluid remaining underground.