An article out of Virginia caught our eye, about the potential for drilling and fracking in Virginia, which has so far been pretty devoid of horizontal drilling and high volume fracking. In reading the article it was like rewinding the tape and hearing the same concerns and arguments we heard 2-3 years ago in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. Funny how the same things keep coming around again and again. Folks who watch HBO and Gasland get stirred up and are understandably concerned, afraid their water supplies will become contaminated with nasty chemicals from fracking–which of course has never happened…anywhere. But still, people have to read and understand and become comfortable with an unfamiliar-to-them process.
The article from Virginia was about potential drilling perhaps a year off–in an area that’s not the Marcellus Shale. The focus of the article–and the potential drilling that will take place–is the Taylorsville Basin along the eastern/central part of the state, around Caroline County, VA. Even though there’s no Marcellus or Utica anywhere in that area, the article still has implications for shale drilling that may one day happen along the western edges of Virginia where there is Marcellus acreage. The implications? Republican state lawmakers seem a bit too eager to introduce legislation that bans fracking in water aquifers–legislation that may have a spillover effect in other areas of the state, including the Marcellus…
