\nThere’s been increased focus on natural gas drilling in a variety of \nnews venues recently. The focus has been on environmental problems and \nenvironmental justice issues rather than how great industry is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In early March the New York Times<\/em> published a series of articles by Ian Urbina called Drilling Down<\/em>. The first can be found here<\/a>\n (there’s a link to the whole series on that page). The three articles \ndeal with the problem of contaminants in fracture flowback, including \nradioactive ones brought up from underground. This is especially a \nproblem with the Marcellus shale in the northeast. Regulators and \nindustry seem to have a difficulty finding a way to adequately deal with\n the huge volumes of waste water. At this point in time a lot of this \nwaste is released, after totally inadequate “treatment,” into surface \nwater used as drinking water sources for millions of people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Supporting the New York Times’<\/em> articles are interactive features, a huge library of documents<\/a>\n (over 1,100 pages culled from EPA, industry, and state regulatory \nsources), and a great 7 minute long video about the issue of air \nemissions from wells and compressor stations. The video, library and \ninteractive features best can be seen if you have high speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also worthwhile checking out is National Geographic’s<\/em> series of articles which can be seen here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\n West Virginia legislature has been working on a bill devoted to \nregulate oil and gas drilling. There were two versions, a Senate and \nHouse bill. The House ended up stopping work on their bill and took up \nthe passed Senate version. There’s been a tremendous amount of pressure \nfrom oil and gas industry folks to quash these bills or any form of \nregulation and it seems to have been successful. The Senate bill died in\n the House and what was passed instead was a bill offering state tax \nbreaks for the industry. You can read about it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Needless to say we are both discouraged by the, not unexpected, turn of events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A\n Harrison county, West Virginia resident has recently uploaded some \nvideos of a Marcellus drilling operation across the road from her house.\n You can see one here<\/a> and while you’re on Youtube, check out her other videos about Marcellus drilling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More soon!\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There’s been increased focus on natural gas drilling in a variety of news venues recently. The focus has been on environmental problems and environmental justice issues rather than how great industry is. In early March the New York Times published a series of articles by Ian Urbina called Drilling Down. The first can be found […]<\/p>\n