The Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources will release the long-awaited Utica Shale production numbers for 2012 at 2:00 pm today, Thursday, May 16.
The Youngstown Business Journal issued this bulletin about the forthcoming numbers:
Read More “OH Utica Production Numbers for 2012 Coming TODAY”
A new study by Duke University researchers and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) finds “no evidence of groundwater contamination from shale gas production in Arkansas.” The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Applied Geochemistry (full copy embedded below), looked at samples from 127 water wells across the state. In those few cases where they found methane, it wasn’t methane from deep below (i.e. drilling) but rather naturally occurring methane from near the surface. No fracking chemicals were found in well water.
This study is yet another nail in the coffin of shrill, anti-drilling blathering that shale drilling “contaminates water supplies.” The science clearly says it does not.
Read More “New Duke/USGS Study: Fracking Does Not Contaminate Well Water”
Are you an Ohio landowner who doesn’t own the mineral rights under your property (those rights being previously separated or “severed”), but you want to? According to Ohio’s Dormant Minerals Act, if the mineral rights owner has not “used” those rights in 20 years, you may be able to reclaim the mineral rights as the surface landowner.
The law firm of Bricker & Eclker LLP explain:
Read More “OH Landowners May be Able to Reclaim Severed Mineral Rights”
You just have to marvel at the creativity of anti-drillers. Get a half dozen of them in a room and they’ll name themselves something funny and then pretend to have hundreds of followers. The media laps it up and amplifies it. Latest example: Anti-drillers who oppose a new fracking wastewater facility GreenHunter Water is proposing for Wheeling, WV. The “Wheeling Water Warriors” have formed to oppose the project. (We wonder if they have spandex uniforms with superhero capes to go along with the name?)
Read More ““Wheeling Water Warriors” Oppose GreenHunter Wastewater Facility”
Columbia Gas Transmission submitted applications to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last Friday to get approval for two pipeline upgrade projects to take advantage of the huge production coming from the Marcellus. In the case of one of the projects (Smithfield III Expansion), Columbia wants to reverse the flow of the pipeline and start sending gas from north to south. That includes replacing certain fittings and building a new compressor station in Washington County, PA. The other proposed new project (Line 1570) includes replacing 18.5 miles of pipeline in southwest PA and upgrading an existing compressor station.
Read More “Columbia Gas Seeks Approval for 2 PA Marcellus Pipeline Projects”
The new grand total for permits to drill in the Ohio Utica Shale has hit 660 as of the latest Dept. of Natural Resources report. Another 22 new permits were issued as of last week. Here’s the rundown of where they were issued:
Read More “ODNR Approves 22 More Utica Permits, Grand Total Now 660”
Agitated for by the odious anti-drilling group Food & Water Watch and supported by elected Democrats, the Cincinnati City Council yesterday passed a resolution calling for a statewide ban on disposing shale wastewater and brine via injection wells. City Council disingenuously says the substances being disposed of (injected in the wells) is hazardous to human health, which is true enough in high concentrations, but they fail to also call for the banning of all such injection wells throughout the state.
Other injection wells in Ohio dispose of far more toxic substances than fracking wastewater. Injection wells are made to hold such substances–yet, no resolution to ban these far more “dangerous” injection wells. How come Cincy? Sauce for the goose…
Read More “Cincinnati City Council Wants to Ban OH Wastewater Injection Wells”
Last week MDN told you that one of New York State’s largest natural gas transmission pipelines, the Millennium, is planning to build a couple of new connectors to other pipelines running through upstate New York (see The Irony: Millennium Pipeline Expanding in NY for More Shale Gas). We now know a bit more about those plans. Several towns in eastern Broome County, NY have received notices from the Millennium that they sit along the proposed pathway where new construction would occur…
Read More “New Pipeline Construction Coming to Broome County, NY”
Apparently John Hanger, former Secretary of the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection under Gov. Ed Rendell, wants to tax the successful Marcellus drilling industry in his state into being far less successful. He’ll do just that if he wins his bid to become PA’s next governor. The Washington, PA Oberver-Reporter supports his nutty philosophy as well. The “looking-through-the-wrong-end-of-the-telescope” argument Hanger and other liberal Democrats try to make is that PA is leaving money on the table that could be used to fund a plethora of social programs (programs that create voters to keep Dems in office). Because PA doesn’t tax the drilling industry as much as Texas and other drilling states by using a severance tax, PA is somehow behind the Eight Ball. There’s just one problem with that argument:
Read More “Hanger, O-R Support Redistribution of Drilling Wealth in PA”
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
Read More “Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Thu, May 16, 2013”