Hydraulic Fracturing

Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Susquehanna County

Looney Toons Anti-Fracking Celebrities Visit Montrose, PA
January 18, 2013January 18, 2013

Yesterday John Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono and son Sean Lennon, along with reliably left movie star Susan Sarandon, boarded a Mercedes tour bus in New York City (burning gobs of diesel, a hated fossil fuel) and headed to the Montrose area of northeastern PA to “tour” drilling and compressor plant sites, visit with the commoners, and make pretentious pronouncements about how gas drilling is killing everyone and everything.

Ono and Lennon, in a bid to boost their non-existent public profiles, started a group last year called “Artists Against Fracking,” which is really kind of funny. Neither Ono nor Lennon can hold a tune in a bucket (see this hysterically funny video of them singing a song about fracking). But perhaps the “art” in “artists” comes from the pornography the 79 year-old Ono creates (see this story about her 2012 “fashion line for men”).

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation

NJ Fracking Moratorium Expires (Yawn) – Junior Still Wants Ban
January 18, 2013January 18, 2013

Yesterday a one-year temporary moratorium on fracking in New Jersey expired—hardly anyone noticed. Nobody wants to drill in New Jersey. The Marcellus Shale that clips one small corner of the state most likely has no gas in it (being on the outer fringe of the Marcellus). But that doesn’t stop anti-drillers from continuing their insistence that the state adopt a full-out ban on fracking.

RINO NJ Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, Jr. (“Junior”) is still pushing his “ban it until the EPA says it’s OK” bill in the legislature (see NJ Bill Would Ban Fracking Until EPA Report is Done). Of course the real aim for Junior and other anti-drillers, as expressed by Environment NJ’s Doug O’Malley, is a permanent ban that will “send a strong message.” The now expired one-year moratorium? That was just a “fig leaf” according to O’Malley…

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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Broome County | Chemung County | Chenango County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Steuben County | Tioga County (NY)

Anti-Fracking Group Mails Propaganda Brochure to 190K NYers
January 18, 2013January 18, 2013

Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy is mailing an anti-fracking brochure (killing precious trees from the Catskills to provide the paper, no doubt) to 190,000 residents throughout the Southern Tier area of New York—a region that desperately wants and needs drilling, and the area that will see drilling when/if the current moratorium is lifted. The brochure is pure propaganda and full of outright lies, but hey, this is still Ameritopia where the First Amendment is alive and well, for people on the left anyway.

An electronic copy of the brochure is embedded below so MDN’s fellow NYers know what they can use to line the bird cage with when it arrives.

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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Maryland | Regulation | Research | Statewide MD

Maryland Gov Finally Allocates Money for Fracking Study in Budget
January 17, 2013January 17, 2013

The stumbling, bumbling governor of Maryland, Socialist/Democrat Martin O’Malley, finally figured out that if the fracking study he himself ordered back in 2011 is ever going to get done by 2014, he’ll need to find money in the budget to do it. So in a blinding acknowledgement of the obvious, he included $1.5 million in the proposed budget he delivered to the legislature yesterday.

Of course, $1.5 million in Maryland is a rounding error in the state budget, but until now anti-drillers in the state have used lack of funding for the study as a convenient excuse to continue a moratorium on drilling. Look for the state’s Dems to neuter out the $1.5 million and then throw up their hands and say “no funding, no study, no drilling.” Typical.

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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Garrett County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Maryland | Regulation | Statewide MD

Maryland Shale Drilling Moratorium to be Debated in Legislature
January 17, 2013January 17, 2013

Want to kill something? Just keep studying it. So says a very perceptive Maryland State Delegate, Wendell Beitzel, who represents Garrett County, MD. Beitzel wants to move forward with Marcellus drilling in Maryland. He faces an uphill battle. There’s a movement on right now to delay drilling by studying it to death (apparently Maryland is taking their cue from New York in that regard)…

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Research

Elsevier Launches New Journal for Unconventional Oil & Gas
January 17, 2013January 17, 2013

Elsevier, perhaps the world’s biggest publisher of scientific journals, is launching a new journal in 2013 called, Journal of Unconventional Oil and Gas Resources—that is, a journal about fracking.The new scholarly journal will be published quarterly and edited by a professor from Penn State.

Here’s the announcement:

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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

Newly Elected PA Auditor General Targets DEP First Day on Job
January 16, 2013January 16, 2013

Keeping a campaign pledge—because it’s always good to keep a pledge if you’re an anti-drilling Democrat, but it’s OK to conveniently forget all the other pledges you made—the newly sworn-in Auditor General for Pennsylvania, Eugene DePasquale, has targeted the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) in what can only be described as a political attack in his very first day on the job:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar Leaving in March
January 16, 2013January 16, 2013

An interesting twist…MDN has followed, with some interest, the future of three federal officials (besides Lord Obama Himself) who potentially have the most influence over oil and gas drilling in the U.S. In case you don’t know, regulation and oversight for oil and gas drilling is specifically left to the individual states under the U.S. Constitution—something the lefties in this country are desperately trying to circumvent by claiming aspects of it come under federal laws like the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act.

The three federal officials who have been complicit in attempting to overthrow states’ rights in regulating oil and gas drilling are…

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Economic Impact | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Jobs

Study Says NE States with Fracking Have Better Credit Ratings
January 16, 2013January 16, 2013

The Kroll Bond Rating Agency has just released an update to a report they originally authored in January of last year titled, Fracking the Marcellus and Utica Basins: Potential Credit Implications. While not taking a position on whether or not fracking in the Marcellus and Utica Shale is good or bad per se, they do say their analysis shows fracking in the Marcellus and Utica Shale is very good for the credit ratings of municipal and state governments where fracking is allowed. Fracking is also jobs-creating engine according to the independent report.

From the Kroll announcement:

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Albany County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY

Albany Times Union Goes on Record as Anti-Fracking
January 15, 2013January 15, 2013

We suppose it’s no surprise, really, but the left-leaning Albany Times Union, a newspaper no doubt read by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, ran an editorial yesterday that dredges up all of the hackneyed, debunked, half-thought-out and simply untrue reasons why New York should ban fracking—and the Times Union went on record supporting an ongoing ban.

Let’s apply a little logic to answer the nagging angst experienced by the Times Union editorial writers, since logic seems to escape them. We’ve interspersed MDN’s comments throughout to provide perspective and answers.

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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Onondaga County | Regulation

Irony: Marcellus, NY Votes to Ban Marcellus Shale Drilling
January 15, 2013January 15, 2013

It’s a sad and ironic day: The town for which the Marcellus Shale is named, Marcellus, NY (Onondaga County, near Syracuse), has voted to ban the Marcellus—as in no Marcellus Shale drilling will be allowed in the township.

By a 5-0 vote last night, the town board illegally stripped away the Constitutional property rights of all of its citizens in contravention to New York State law…

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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Sullivan County

Middletown 4th Graders Brainwashed by Teachers Against Fracking
January 14, 2013January 14, 2013

What angers MDN editor Jim Willis more than almost any other issue in the fracking debate is when adults contaminate the minds of young people with their own, polluted, distorted opinions—especially on the topic of fracking. Unfortunately it happens down to the youngest grades, including the nine year-old students of fourth grade anti-fracking teachers Mary Hayes and Patricia McGorry in the Maple Hill Elementary School in Middletown (Sullivan County), NY. Shame on them.

Here’s the story and background:

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Accidents | Cuyahoga County | Energy Companies | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Mountaineer Keystone | Ohio

Methane Migration into Water Well Near Cleveland, OH
January 14, 2013January 14, 2013

It seems possible, and from the reporting, even likely, that shale gas drilling (and fracking) has caused methane migration and “contamination” of a water well for a family that lives outside Cleveland, OH.

Below is the story as reported by the Washington Examiner. The family’s water was tested before drilling was begun by Mountaineer Keystone and there was methane present in the water, but at the safe level of 9 parts per million. Now, after nearby drilling? There’s 22 PPM in their water, and they can (yes) light their faucets on fire, just like in the notoriously inaccurate movie Gasland…

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY

“Real” Deadline for NY DEC to Decide Fracking Issue: Feb 13
January 14, 2013January 14, 2013

The magic date by which the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) must release new rules to allow fracking is and has been Feb. 27—which is the end of the 90-day extension period we’re currently in. However, there’s a closer, more important date to watch for those who support fracking and want to see it go forward, and for those who don’t. That date? Feb. 13.

Here’s why is Feb. 13 is a critical date and likely the “real” deadline for the DEC to decide yes or no…

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY

What Do Fracking, Coffee & Secret Reports have in Common?
January 14, 2013January 14, 2013

Hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas is an economic, technological miracle—hands down. There are some negatives associated with the practice, but fracking in no way pollutes ground water aquifers as claimed by people who simply hate all fossil fuels (and must justify their hatred with specious arguments like “it pollutes water”).

A recent column in the New York Post does a stellar job of putting the miracle of fracking—and New York’s angst over it—in context by using a little known story of actual events that happened in Sweden during the 1700s—events that had to do with one of MDN’s favorite addictions: coffee. It’s the kind of column we wish we had written…

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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Statewide NY

NY Anti-Frackers Take Pledge, Vow Civil Disobedience
January 14, 2013January 14, 2013

It’s certainly not the first time this has happened… But we thought you’d want to know that if you’re a New York landowner, if/when the NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) moves forward with a plan to allow fracking in the state, some of your fellow New Yorkers (mostly from New York City), will try to deny you your right to allow drilling on and under your land—by use of what they call “nonviolent civil disobedience.”

At last Wednesday’s anti-fracking rally in Albany, NY during Gov. Cuomo’s State of the State address, the 800-1,000 anti-frackers in attendance “with fists in the air” took the following Pledge to Resist Fracking in New York:

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