Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Mon, May 7, 2012

The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:

Pre-drill Water Quality Data Demonstrates the Importance of Private Water Supply Testing
GantDaily.com
Many people with private water wells have never or seldom have their well water tested.

Philadelphia firm Saul Ewing opens in Pittsburgh, drawn by natural gas work
Post-gazette.com
Philadelphia-based Saul Ewing has opened an office in Pittsburgh, a market that has been sought out by out-of-town firms clamoring not just for Marcellus Shale work, but everything the shale play brings with it.

Steve Israel: Fracking laws pitting nature, industry
Times Herald-Record
Singer Natalie Merchant is among big-name Hudson Valley stars set to appear May 15 at a rally/concert in Albany protesting fracking.

Cadiz starts to ride the boom
The Columbus Dispatch
Since 2002, Tammy Mattern has collected nine houses on the cheap through foreclosures and sheriff’s sales in Cadiz, the beleaguered seat of rural Harrison County in eastern Ohio. Her latest find is an old boarding house with six bedrooms and three kitchens. It cost $15,000.

Anti-fracking rally in Mahwah draws more than 200 people
NorthJersey.com
But the more than 200 people gathered Saturday in Mahwah on a tract just off Ramapo Valley Road – claimed as ceremonial land by the members of the Ramapough Lenape Nation – were focused on an even bigger picture of "collectively healing Mother Earth," as Victoria Shield explained.

Increasing oil and gas taxes would be bad for Ohio
Marietta Times
As more companies move into or expand operations in Ohio, bringing thousands of new jobs, now is not the time for Ohio to increase taxes on our growing oil-and-natural-gas industry.

Pennsylvania city stops discharging drilling wastewater
American Water Works Association
McKeesport, Pa., will stop accepting and discharging wastewater from nearby gas drilling operations under terms of settlement of a Clean Water Act suit brought by two environmental advocacy groups.

First Statewide Fracking Ban May Soon Pass
The Huffington Post
Vermont appears on the verge of enacting the nation’s first statewide ban of a hotly debated natural gas drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing.

NW Pa. fracking firm lays off 40 over low prices
The York Daily Record
A northwestern Pennsylvania fracking operation has laid off 40 workers because low natural gas prices are slowing down drilling efforts.