Posts Tagged ‘ Pennsylvania ’

Pennsylvania Fracking Upcoming Events and Public Meetings

March 14th, 2011. By

Just passing along three upcoming events regarding hydraulic fracking in the Marcellus Shale region that I came across over at the Marcellus Shale Protest website. So if you’re in Pennsylvania, or can be, you may want to attend. We do try to keep it balanced here, but given the recent lawsuit and the growing groundswell around questions about the safety of fracking near our water supplies, it’s important to stay abreast of local public meetings and for folks to participate and stay informed.

Everything you want to know about Marcellus Shale Drilling

(From MarcellusProtest.org: Everything you want to know about Marcellus Shale drilling—and what you can do: A Citizen’s Guide; Free workshop to learn more about the natural gas exploration process, how it is regulated, and what must be done to ensure our land, water and communities are protected.)

Date/Time: Tuesday, March 15th, 6:30 p.m.

Location:

Blossburg Memorial Library

307 Main Street

Blossburg, PA 16912

Phone: 717-214-7920

Marcellus Co-op Meeting in Canonsburg

(From MarcellusProtest.org: Marcellus Co-op meeting at Canon McMillan High School Organized by Jesse White The plan is for neighboring municipalities to share resources and possibly hire an enforcement officer for regulations at drilling and compressor sites.)

Date/Time: Tuesday, March 15th, 10:30 p.m.

Location:

Canon-McMillon High School

314 Elm St.Canonsburg, PA

15317

Marcellus Shale Gas Environmental Summit

(Note: this is an industry summit so only industry insiders (and vendors) can attend; however, there are folks who are planning to meet outside the summit to share their concern over fracking in the Shale region; as of press time here, the Facebook event listing for Protest the Gas Industry Marcellus Shale Summit shows 77 attending, 26 maybe attending, and 1,287 still needing to respond.)

Date/Time: Tuesday, March 29th, 11:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.

Location:

Renaissance Pittsburgh Hotel

107 6th Street

Pittsburgh, PA

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EPA Gets Fracking on Study

March 23rd, 2010. By

After growing concerns over the use of hydraulic fracturing to access natural gas, the EPA is now going to begin a “comprehensive research study” to investigate whatever the effects—potentially not good—the process may have on water quality and public health. According to the EPA’s press release (3/18/10), “There are concerns that hydraulic fracturing may impact ground water and surface water quality in ways that threaten human health and the environment.”

Hydraulic fracturing, aka “fracking”, has become a hotly debated extraction method in states like New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia where there are shale formations—the Marcellus Formation stretches out through the Appalachian Basin. Over the last three years, the Marcellus Shale has become increasingly important as gas discoveries in the area point to a vastly undertapped energy source. Estimates put the amount of natural gas held within the Marcellus Formation at 168 trillion to 516 trillion cubic feet, which the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (dec.ny.gov/energy) puts into context by stating that NY state uses about 1.1 trillion cubic feet of  natural gas a year. That’s potentially a lot of years of gas supply…

To help put things in perspective further, according to an article in Business Week (3/10/10), shale gas currently accounts for 20 percent of the US gas supply—and is expected to jump to 50Wile E. Coyote doing some of his own "fracking" percent of the supply by 2035.

But environmentalists—and NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg—have been opposed to natural gas fracking. Bloomberg wants to ban drilling at the upstate New York Marcellus Shale area. Why? Two words: water supply.

So what exactly happens with hydraulic fracking?

According to the EPA site (epa.gov), first a well is drilled into reservoir rock that contains oil, natural gas, and water. Then, a fluid—usually water that contains “specialty high-viscosity fluid additives” —is injected under high pressure into the rock. Because of the immense pressure of the fluid being driven into the rock, the rock splits open further—i.e., it creates “fractures” (can’t help but have a flashback to Wile E. Coyote in free-fall off the side of a cliff resulting in “fractured” bedrock below).

Once the rock is fractured, a propping agent (such as sand) is pumped into the fractures to keep them from closing once the pumping pressure is released. The fractures allow the natural gas to move more freely to a production well so that it can be brought to the surface.

Sounds straightforward—and back in 2004, the EPA conducted a study to determine the potential for contamination of underground sources of drinking water (usdw) from the injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids by coalbed methane wells. At the time, the EPA concluded that the injection of fracturing fluids by coalbed methane wells posed little or no threat to underground drinking water sources.

According to the Business Week article, there haven’t been any documented cases of fluids injected into wells migrating from the wells into the groundwater. However…

Earlier this year, the PA Environmental Protection Dept. fined Talisman Energy, Inc. $3,500 for violations in 2009 that “included discharging drilling fluids into Sugar Creek in Troy Township.”

There are other concerns, too. In New York City, the water supply is the nation’s largest unfiltered system. According to Cas Holloway, NYC Environmental Protection Department commissioner, should the city lose a federal filtration waiver, it could cost between $10 – $20 billion to build a treatment plant.

The EPA is re-allocating $1.9 million for the peer-reviewed study for the full-year 2010 and is also requesting funds for full-year 2011 in the president’s budget proposal.


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