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Nazareth, Pa., United States

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

WSJ: Faulty Wells Cause Pollution, Not Fracking

According to WSJ, this is the increasing consensus of both energy company officials (no surprise there) and environmentalists (big surprise).

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Geologists are beginning to suspect (might not be "beginning", but rather "do") that fracking causes earthquakes in regions not know for earthquakes.

Anonymous said...

WSJ.... faulty reporting from Ruppert Murdoch
causes polluted minds...

Anonymous said...

Fracking has cut the cost of natural gas in half and made PA a net energy exporter. It's been around for 60 years and there are very few cases of suspected contamination - except in the mind of those who think Al Gore and his 50,000 square foot mansion are green-friendly.

Fracking saves lives by not requiring the sacrifice of 19-year olds for some hateful Arabs' oil and gas. Fracking is good. Very good.

Don Miles said...

I don't know who those "environmentalists" are who don't think fracking causes pollution.
If you want to learn the facts, I suggest you join us here Friday and Saturday:
ONLY TWO DAYS LEFT! Don't miss:

"MARCELLUS SHALE EXPOSED: A SYMPOSIUM FOR TRUTH AND ACTION"

FRIDAY AND SATURDAY at NORTHAMPTON COMMUNITY COLLEGE, Green Pond Road, Bethlehem Township, PA

REMEMBER: to insure your seat for the Friday evening showing of 2011 Academy Award nominee film "Gasland", for our keynote speaker, and for one of the 6 Task Force workshops
for the FREEE LV Sierra Club "Marcellus Shale Exposed - A Symposium for Truth and Action" on March 16-17,
YOU MUST GO TO THE EVENT WEBSITE TO REGISTER to make sure you get a seat:
http://www.marcellus-shale-exposed.org/

Dr. Anthony Ingraffea of Cornell University, a national expert on the environmental impacts of natural gas hydrofracturing, as the Saturday Keynote Speaker.

Also speaking Saturday:

- Deborah Rogers, a financial consultant who joined the fight against fracking when she discovered that 12 high impact wells were planned next to her property in Texas. She is the founder of the Energy Policy Forum. She will speak on the economics of drilling.

- Jeff Schmidt is the Director of the Sierra Club's Pennsylvania Chapter and understands the legislative and regulatory playing field better than anyone.

- Tracy Carluccio is Deputy Director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, the organization at the forefront of the battle to maintain the moratorium against drilling in the Delaware River Basin. She will discuss environmental impacts.

- Dr. Vera Cole is President of the Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy Association, author of Pennsylvania Homeowner's Guide to Solar Electricity, and Senior Lecturer in Energy Sustainability and Policy at Penn State. She will speak on clean energy alternatives to drilling.

- Karen Feridun is founder of Berks Gas Truth, a grassroots community organization opposed to unconventional natural gas drilling. She will present practical information on working with the media and using social media to advance a message.

- Dr. Michelle Bamberger, a private practice veterinarian, and Robert E. Oswald of the Department of Molecular Medicine at Cornell University are authors of a new study, Impacts of Gas Drilling on Human and Animal Health, that demonstrates the effects of fracking fluid, methane gas, and other gas drilling-related contamination on the health of both humans and animals. They will discuss their investigation of sites with "fracking" impacts.

Following our speakers, you will (if you register) have the opportunity to participate in one of our 6 Task Force workshops, aimed at developing ongoing regional efforts to deal with the natural gas hydrofracturing impacts in Pennsylvania. Each Task Force session will be led by an expert, an activist, and a moderator:
-- Environmental Concerns
-- Economic Impacts
-- Political / Legislative / Regulatory Actions
-- Public Health and Medical Impacts
-- Alternative Energy and Transition from Carbon Fuels
-- Media and Public Relations.

A number of organizations involved in dealing with the impacts of natural gas "fracking" drilling will have tables at the Symposium where you may learn about their efforts.

- Don Miles
LV Sierra Club chairman
610-730-2514

Anonymous said...

SO EVERYONE IS IMAGINING THAT THEIR WELL WATER IS BAD, SINCE THIS HAS STARTED.

Anonymous said...

Anon 842, maybe you should read the headline again. No one is denying pollution, the issue is what's causing it.

Bernie O'Hare said...

2:11, I've read that. That makes sense, especially when you frack right on top of a fault line.

Bernie O'Hare said...

Don, don't know why, but your comment was detected as spam. I jst loaded it. Sorry about that.

I wish I had known about this event sooner. on Friday, I'll be watching my grandson. I doubt very much he'd enjoy a fracking seminar. On Saturday I'll try to be there.

Anonymous said...

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/12/05/epa-drinking-water-in-dimock-pa-uncontaminated-by-fracking/

The gasland director was recently arrested and if anyone looked at his property I am sure they could find some enviromental hazards.

Anonymous said...

Gaslight is a Michael Moore type hit film that is long on hysteria and very short on facts. People in Dimmock have been able to ignite their spiggots for years. It's how they learned there was gas down below, along with the oil they were already drilling. President Obama has stated that fracking for gas can be done safely and is a key to energy independence. For the lefty cocktail set who watch Gaslight on taxpayers' dimes at SteelStacks, anti-fracking is the new black. They'll drive to rallys in their Volvos and feign outrage.

noël jones said...

Anon 6:59--the current form of "fracking" being practiced has not been around for 60 years. That is industry propaganda. Blowing JUST water and sand down VERTICAL wells has been around for that long, but the current "unconventional" or "horizontal" hydraulic fracturing process involving blowing water, sand and toxic viscosity agents down HORIZONTAL wells through the shale in every direction only ramped up in 2005 when Cheney and the Bush White House pushed legislation through Congress exempting natural gas drillers from oversight by the EPA via the Safe Drinking Water and Clean Air Acts.

This WSJ article is just more industry propaganda BS.

YES--blown well-casings (as with the BP Gulf Disaster) are a big part of the pollution problem.

BUT--so is the various methods of frack waste water disposal, among other aspects of nontraditional natural gas drilling.

This is industry spin and trickery, and this is how it works:

The industry claims regularly that "fracking has never been proven to cause water contamination" at all. This is a legal game, whereby attorneys for the industry are defining "fracking" as only the part of the practice where the water, sand and chemicals are blown at high pressure under ground--just that action--blowing the water down. They are not including any other part of the process before or after in their legal definition of "fracking."

When you come back at them and ask if there has been any proof that "unconventional natural gas drilling" has caused water contamination, they clam up.

Don't believe the hype. "Fracking" in popular culture has come to mean the ENTIRE process, from draining of millions of gallons of water out of the rivers, streams and tributaries, to the noise pollution and road destruction of constant truck traffic to haul it to the derricks, to the noise and land destruction of the drilling of the wells themselves, to the blowing of toxic chemicals, sand and water at high pressure down the well, to the disposal of the toxic waste water, to the fumes continuously being vented into the air.

Anonymous said...

the sierra club. a bunch of leftist tree hugging fools bent on destroying the world the clean most expensive way.

Anonymous said...

noel is wrong. 65 years of fracking. first horizontals using same tech were '97. problems are minor compared to deep water drilling and fighting for it in the middle east. noel likely doesn't think twice before putting drano into the water supply. it's perceived risk. there will always be chicken littles to tell us the sky is falling when ti isn't.

Don Miles said...

Anonymous:

The Academy Award-nominated film is "GASLAND", not "Gaslight".

And its director, Josh Fox, was arrested (upon demand of the Republican committee chairman) trying to quietly film, with "press" credentials, a public Congressional hearing on natural gas drilling in the U.S. Capitol building. What a horrible, horrible act by an American citizen: recording his elected officials quietly at a public meeting. The ranking Democrat on the committee told the press afterwards it was the first time in his 30 years on the committee he had seen anyone prevented from filming a public committee meeting.
First Amendment: Republican style.