Fracking Waste Messes With Texas: Rachel Maddow Show

Terrence Henry, energy and environment reporter for StateImpact Texas, talks with Rachel Maddow about the sudden rash of earthquakes in Texas, apparently the result of the disposal of waste fluid resulting from natural gas fracking. From the August 7th, 2012 edition of The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC.

Walter Hang Tesitifies at Senate Standing Committee On Energy Conservation Hearing

Walter Hang, president, Toxics Targeting. NYS Public Hearing, Senate Standing Committee on Energy Conservation. Sponsored by NYS Senators Mark Grisanti and Patrick Gallivan to examine waste water produced by hydraulic fracturing. The Inn on the Lake, Canandaigua, NY December 12, 2011.

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Uintah County (Utah) may violate environmental laws

"30-year practice in Uintah County may violate environmental laws: "...That's because the high-temperature water used by the county's road crews to de-ice culverts is the minimally-treated byproduct of oil and natural gas drilling, which means it can contain drilling fluid, hydrocarbons and other unknown contaminants. The county's practice — which may have been in place for as many as 30 years — was brought to the health department's attention on Jan. 10 by a homeowner near 500 West and 1500 North. The man provided Brown with video he captured of a road department employee who had just unloaded produced water into a roadside ditch. The video, obtained by the Uintah Basin Standard through a public records request, shows the homeowner climbing into the ditch and scooping out a jar full of steaming, cloudy water. It also clearly shows the door of the truck with the words "Uintah County" emblazoned on the side...The water used by the county came from ponds owned by Western Energy Operating LLC, based in Casper, Wyo., he said..."

LINK
 
Kudos to this citizen who got the contaminated water sample and made the video.

Drilling Wastewater Goes Into PA Rivers

ProPublica reports on the dire situation regarding the disposal of wastewater from gas drilling operations in PA.  One-fifth of the wastewater is apparently unaccounted for.

"As gas-drilling operations proliferated in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale over the past couple of years, most of the hundreds of millions of gallons of briny wastewater they produced was eventually dumped into the state's rivers. Much of the rest is unaccounted for. That news, from a detailed look [1] at the state's management of drilling wastewater by the Associated Press, should come as no surprise....."

Read more...

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

In memory of Karen Korell

Splashdown

Marcellus Shale: Professor Dan Volz Challenges Boom Town Sales Pitch

University of Pittsburgh Professor Dan Volz challenges the "boom town" sales pitch for natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale- a model that claims the benefits far outweigh the risks.

"Much is said about the benefits of drilling in the Marcellus Shale," Volz said. "But none of the cost-benefit analyses touted by the gas industry and government take into account what is known as 'public goods'- like impacts on air and water."

Dr. Volz is Assistant Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health at the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh. He is also Director for the Center for Healthy Environments and Communities there.

Volz's point was illustrated in a recent "Energy Report" published by The Wall Street Journal (May 10, 2010). The cover essay is titled, "How Shale Gas Is Going to Rock the World," by Amy Myers Jaffe. Her analysis of shale gas runs more than 2,000 words, yet "environmental risk" is dismissed in 129 words, as observed by Spectra Energy Watch.

Visit Spectra Energy Watch  which inspired this blog post.

Land Farms Pollute Our Soil

Land farms are a so-called acceptable and recommended method of disposing toxic sludge produced by hydrofracking. Here is a description of how it is done:

"The objective of applying drilling wastes to the land is to allow the soil's naturally occurring microbial population to metabolize, transform, and assimilate waste constituents in place. Land application is a form of bioremediation.

Optimal land application techniques balance the additions of waste against a soil's capacity to assimilate the waste constituents without destroying soil integrity, creating subsurface soil contamination problems, or causing other adverse environmental impacts.

The exploration and production (E&P) industry has used land farming to treat oily petroleum industry wastes for years. Land farming is the controlled and repeated application of wastes to the soil surface, using microorganisms in the soil to naturally biodegrade hydrocarbon constituents, dilute and attenuate metals, and transform and assimilate waste constituents.

Land farming can be a relatively low-cost drilling waste management approach. Some studies indicate that land farming does not adversely affect soils and may even benefit certain sandy soils by increasing their water-retaining capacity and reducing fertilizer losses."

Who wants to take the first bite of fresh broccoli grown on a land farm or order a juicy hamburger made from cattle who have grazed on such a farm?

Does this information put out by our government sound in any way healthy? Land farms do not adversely affect the soil? How can this be true? With thousands of natural gas wells already installed and thousands more planned in 32 states, where will all these land farms be located? Near your front porch? Near a watershed or river? The scale and magnitude of this industrial process is beyond understanding.

Read about land farms here at a web page provided by the US Department of Energy.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Thanks to Bluedaze: Drilling Reform for Texas for the video above.
http://txsharon.blogspot.com/