Hydraulic Fracturing

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    Deadline for NY Fracking Regs Slips Again…Or Does It?

    deadline This is without a doubt the most difficult article MDN has had to author—on many levels. Yesterday, New York’s Commissioner of the Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC), Joe Martens, announced he would not release the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) today, Feb. 13, because of a delay he’s blaming on the state health department. We previously reported that if the SGEIS was not released today, final regulations would not be adopted by Feb. 27 to allow fracking to move forward. In a statement yesterday, Martens seemed to say that’s not necessarily the case. His statement is confusing and contradictory, and frankly no one fully understands it.

    MDN will break this all down and tell you what we know, what we don’t know, and what we think will happen. We have statements from State Health Commissioner Shah and DEC Commissioner Martens along with comments from various organizations with their interpretation of what it means. We will take you through the process chapter and verse—so this is a long post. We won’t keep you in suspense: We don’t know exactly what to make of Martens’ comments. It’s muddled, we believe intentionally so. The real person to keep your eye on in this theatre of the absurd is Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who seems to want to have his cake and eat it too…

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    “Thank You for Fracking” – Air Pollution Goes Down in PA

    Because of miracle of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) and the natural gas it generates, and because that abundant new source of natural gas burns cleaner than any other fossil fuel, air pollution in Pennsylvania declined—significantly—from 2008 to 2011. So we tip our hat and say a big, “Thank you for fracking.”

    Some of the stats recently reported by PA to the federal EPA in a report on air pollution (required every three years):

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    NRDC & CCSE Sue Sanford, NY over No-Frackspeak Resolution

    Not since the Viet Nam protests have hippie and hippie wannabes been so fired up over an issue as they are about fracking. The fracking fight has injected meaning and purpose back in to their pathetic lives. When hippies get fired up, they need an audience to listen to them. What better audience than the local (captive) monthly town board meeting? Hippies attend these meetings as a form of harassment to endlessly recycle the same pabulum that fracking kills, fracking pollutes, fracking yada yada yada—month in and month out.

    Council members for the Town of Sanford, NY, tucked in the outer edge of Broome County, had heard enough yammering from a select few local residents on the topic of fracking, so they passed a resolution that there would be no more lecturing on fracking (either for or against) during public comment periods at board meetings. Whoops! That’s like waving a red flag at a bull. You just don’t deny a hippie their three minutes of freak-show time before the microphones…

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    MDN Reviews New Documentary FrackNation

    FrackNation poster We won’t keep you in suspense. Run!—don’t walk—to attend a screening, watch on cable television or purchase a DVD of the new documentary FrackNation. This is hands down the most important documentary on an environmental topic made in the last decade or more. It exposes the fabrications found in the documentary Gasland, and tells the truth about what MDN calls the miracle of hydraulic fracturing.

    Phelim McAleer is an investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker—someone who speaks truth to power. In Phelim’s case, he’s made a career of challenging accepted environmentalist orthodoxy. He delights in laying bare the misstatements and outright lies told by the so-called green movement. His newest documentary, FrackNation, tackles the hottest environmental topic currently being debated not only in the U.S., but around the world—hydraulic fracturing for oil and natural gas.

    Phelim is originally from Ireland, but he’s a citizen of the world having worked for The London Sunday Times, the Financial Times and the Economist. For the past decade or so he’s been a freelance journalist and filmmaker. So how did an Irishman living in Los Angeles come to make a documentary about fracking in Pennsylvania? In the beginning was Gasland…

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    NY Groups Want Cuomo Aide with “Ties” to Fracking Investigated

    Seven anti-drilling groups held yet another press conference yesterday in Albany, which is like saying the sun came up in Albany yesterday. This time the groups went a tad too far on the bizarro spectrum—even for other anti-drillers. Breathless in their charge, the assembled anti-drilling groups claimed (trumpet fanfare, ta da da da)…that Lawrence Schwartz, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s chief of staff, has $3,000-$4,000 invested in the stock market in oil and gas companies. (Gasp!)

    Yes ladies and gentlemen, that puny investment means Schwartz has run a mind-fake on Cuomo, and like Svengali of old, he’s hypnotized Cuomo into allowing fracking which will poison the good citizens of New York in order to boost the value of oil and gas companies and thus his personal holdings by what, maybe $500? The price of a single bottle of fine wine at one of Cuomo’s power lunches? But hey, this is “a really serious charge,” so these fine, upstanding groups—with no conflicts of interest of their own (*cough*)—are calling on the Albany County District Attorney General’s office to investigate…

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    MDN Interviews Phelim McAleer, Creator of FrackNation Documentary

    Phelim McAleer at FrackNation Screening in Binghamton, NY MDN editor Jim Willis had the pleasure of interviewing Phelim McAleer, creator, director and star of the documentary FrackNation, yesterday (watch the interview below). Phelim attended a screening of his new film in Binghamton, NY on Sunday, Feb. 10. He was joined by over 400 area residents, a surprising number given Binghamton is not all that large a city and the screening was held the day after a major snow storm had dumped more than 7 inches of snow in the area.

    MDN will provide a full review of the documentary in a separate article. This article is about meeting Phelim in person…

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    77K NY Landowners Prepare Lawsuit Against DEC

    MDN editor Jim Willis caught up with the attorney for the Joint Landowners Coalition of New York (JLCNY) at the Sunday, Feb. 10 screening of FrackNation in Binghamton, NY (video of the interview is embedded below). The JLCNY represents 77,000 New York landowners with over 1 million acres of land who are interested in leasing their land for natural gas drilling. New York State has not allowed those landowners to move forward with shale drilling for more than 4 1/2 years. Landowners, according to Kurkoski, are ready to take action if Gov. Cuomo delays it yet again this week.

    MDN received a notice last Friday that the JLCNY is laying the groundwork for a lawsuit against the state for “de facto taking.” Kurkoski explains exactly what that means…

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    NY Health Experts Completed Fracking Review >1 Month Ago

    This is the week New York landowners will know of Gov. Cuomo’s decision, one way or the other, about whether or not he will allow fracking to proceed in New York. In a big way, this week will determine Cuomo’s future on the national political stage. He (laughingly) thinks he has a shot a running for president in 2016. Let’s not burst his bubble at the moment.

    Part of the potential setup to further delay fracking (which is really a decision by the gov to kill it) is to say “we’re waiting for the results of a health review” and blame the delay on three consultants who were hired to conduct a review of the DEC’s work in regard to fracking’s potential impacts on “public health,” whatever that is. It has just come to light those three outside experts turned in their homework more than a month ago, but DEC Commissioner Joe Martens and NYS Health Commissioner Nirav Shah have cagily concealed that little fact in statements given at recent public hearings:

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    1984 PA Oil & Gas Act Rewrite Delayed but Still Coming

    In February 2012, Pennsylvania state lawmakers adopted new shale drilling regulations called Act 13. MDN reported several months later, in August 2012, that Act 13 “didn’t do the whole job” and written into the Act 13 law itself was a requirement that the state’s 1984 oil and gas law undergo a complete regulatory rewrite (see Rewrite of 1984 PA Oil and Gas Act Underway). At that time (in August), the five-member Oil and Gas Technical Advisory Board issued 23 pages of proposed changes to the 1984 law and said they planned to have the rewrite done and dusted by December 2012.

    It’s February 2013 and the 23-page draft has now grown to be 73 pages, and the original December deadline for completing the rewrite has now turned into “next winter.” However, progress is being made on what one board member calls a “big deal”…

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    Join MDN at FrackNation Screening in Binghamton on Feb. 10 [Free]

    don't forget A quick reminder that in spite of the impending snow storm which will be cleaned up by sometime Saturday, MDN editor Jim Willis will attend the 2pm Sunday, Feb. 10 screening of Phelim McAleer’s new documentary FrackNation at Regal Cinemas Binghamton 12 on Front Street in Binghamton. Phelim will be there! We’d like you to come along and watch it too (free). Here are the details:

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    OH Appeals Court Strikes Down Home Rule for Drilling

    court gavel In 2012, Beck Energy Corp. got a permit from the OH Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) to drill on property located in the City of Munroe Falls (Summit County), OH. Beck started drilling and the city slapped a Stop Work Order on them and took them to court, saying Beck was not in compliance with a number of local ordinances and necessary permits. The local trial court supported Munroe Falls’ position and ruled in their favor.

    Beck appealed the trial court decision to the Ohio Court of Appeals (Ninth District) and in a decision handed down yesterday, the appellate court sided with Beck and against so-called “home rule” when it comes to oil and gas drilling. The Ninth District instructed the lower court to reverse its opinion. This decision (full copy embedded below) has major consequences for both Utica Shale drillers and municipalities throughout the state…

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    Obama Picks REI CEO to Head Dept. of Interior

    President Obama has picked Sally Jewell, a “conservation advocate” and the CEO of outdoor retailer Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI) to be his next secretary for the Dept. of Interior, filling the post that Ken Salazar is vacating. The DOI and its Bureau of Land Management have developed new rules for hydraulic fracturing on federal lands that Obama “hopes” may serve as a “template” for fracking on private land (see Feds ‘Hope’ States will Use BLM Rules for ALL Fracking). The new BLM rules generated a lot of controversy in 2012 and Salazar and the DOI backed off implementing them until a rewrite is completed.

    Jewell, if confirmed, will enter the battle over hydraulic fracturing and whether or not the federal government has a role to play in it (MDN and the U.S. Constitution says the feds don’t have a role). The extremist environmental organization Sierra Club likes Jewell, which is a huge red flag. However, she did once work for Mobil Oil (now Exxon Mobil)—for a few years just out of college.

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    NY’s Anti-Drillers Attempt Smear of Geologists Consulting for DEC

    How does one convey the lunacy of the anti-drilling position in New York State? Latest example: The NY Dept. of Environment Conservation (DEC) has hired two geologists as consultants to evaluate earthquake risks associated with fracking (yes we know, there is no earthquake risk, but humor us for a bit). In a coordinated attack, anti-drillers say that because the two geologists have also done consulting assignments for nasty, evil drilling companies, they’re tainted. Damaged goods. Shills and tools of the drilling industry. Not to be trusted. Even though they’ve also done consulting work for environmentalist (anti-drilling) organizations. Doesn’t matter.

    Such is how far anti-drillers have sunk in their campaign of smears and lies to try and prevent the miracle of hydraulic fracturing—which is already being done in NY in vertical conventional wells and has been for decades—from happening in the state for horizontal shale wells too.

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    NY Drillers: “Optimistic” DEC will Meet Feb 13 Fracking Deadline

    Landowners in New York State wait with bated breath for next Wednesday, Feb. 13 (one week from today), to see if the Dept. of Environmental Conservation publishes a final version of new fracking regulations. If the DEC misses the deadline next Wednesday, the new rules will almost certainly not be released on Feb. 27, which is the final deadline to release those rules or… or the process restarts. More public comments. More posturing by environmental extremists. More everything. If the deadline next Wednesday is missed, all bets are off on whether New York will ever see fracking in our opinion.

    What does “the industry” think? Perhaps the best barometer of what drillers are thinking comes from Brad Gill, the executive director of the Independent Oil & Gas Association of New York (IOGA of NY). He was in Albany yesterday to meet with lawmakers. Here’s what he said:

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    Martens Prepares to Blame Shah if Fracking Doesn’t Happen in NY

    scapegoat Pennsylvania is doubling their natural gas output every year by using fracking. So is West Virginia. Ohio has now joined the fracking club and is ramping up their natural gas production. All of the states in the northeast “neighborhood” are fracking—without water contamination, without pollution problems, without a negative impact on “public health,” et cetera et cetera. All except New York, which continues to dither over its decision to frack. Why? Politics. Not science, not health concerns. Politics.

    In testimony before the NY legislature yesterday, Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Joe Martens acknowledged if the DEC doesn’t meet a Feb. 13 deadline to publish final drilling rules the review process will need to restart—yet he also told legislators there is no projected date for finishing shale gas drilling rules and it will depend on recommendations from a health review the DEC will receive “in a few weeks.” MDN finds Martens’ comments from yesterday troubling…

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