Hydraulic Fracturing

Air Quality | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation

API Study: New EPA Emissions Rules Will Cut Drilling 52%
March 16, 2012March 16, 2012

If proposed new EPA air emissions regulations go into effect later this year as proposed, the number of wells drilled using hydraulic fracturing will drop by half, according to a study commissioned and just released by the American Petroleum Institute (a copy of the study is embedded below). The Obama administration has given lip service support for shale gas drilling, most notably in Obama’s recent State of the Union speech—but the administration’s actions don’t match their words.

According to the study, the new EPA regulations would result in an 11 percent drop in gas production, and a 37 percent drop in domestic oil production. The federal government will also receive $8.5 billion less in royalty payments from reduced drilling.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

Anti-Drillers Try to Stop SRBC Meeting in Harrisburg
March 16, 2012March 16, 2012

Yet another case of anti-drillers behaving badly. At yesterday’s meeting of commissioners of the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) in Harrisburg, PA, demonstrators tried to stop the commissioners from doing their work during an open meeting. The commissioners were voting on water withdrawal requests for Marcellus drillers, among other items on the agenda. And protestors once again tried to stop an SRBC open and public meeting.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Statewide OH | Taxation

Ohio Proposal for Revamped Severance Tax, New Impact Fee
March 15, 2012March 15, 2012

As MDN reported last week, Ohio Gov. John Kasich introduced a shale gas and oil severance tax overhaul yesterday. The leaked details from last week were correct—but we now have the full proposal (embedded below). Gov. Kasich is tying a revamped severance tax to lowering income taxes for all Ohioans—by up to $1 billion over five years.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Statewide NY

NY Democrat Assembly Tries New Tactic to Derail Fracking
March 13, 2012March 13, 2012

In a measure backed by the anti-drilling Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the New York State Assembly has set aside $100,000 to conduct an “independent” health impact study of hydraulic fracturing in its budget for next fiscal year. The measure was proposed by NY State Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton (Democrat from Ithaca, NY). Lifton is part of an anti-drilling cabal of the NRDC, Park Foundation and others who are desperately trying to prevent hydraulic fracturing from happening in New York State. Chief tactic number one? Slow it down by delays and studies until they can eventually kill it.

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

Home Rule Didn’t Work in PA, So Why Would it in NY?
March 13, 2012March 13, 2012

The headline of this post is the point of a press release issued earlier this week by the Dryden Safe Energy Coalition (DSEC), a group based near Ithaca, NY that seeks to remove the hype and emotion from the debate over hydraulic fracturing and shale gas drilling and instead provide science and facts. The DSEC issued a press release (below) which makes the point that Pennsylvania has had a lot more experience with shale gas drilling than New York and has found that a “patchwork quilt of local regulations” on the municipal level did not work, so PA replaced home rule with statewide regulations.

The DSEC says: “If local home rule does not work in Pennsylvania, it is clear it will not be workable in New York.” (Listen up, NY Republican State Senator James Seward.)

From the DSEC press release:

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Delaware County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation

Delaware County Asks NY State for $81.3B in Reparations
March 12, 2012March 12, 2012

Paying $9 billion to build a new water filtration plant for New York City may look like a bargain compared to paying New York landowners the value of their mineral rights from shale gas drilling. That’s the point being made by the Delaware County Board of Supervisors with a recent resolution they passed in a 12-4 vote at their February meeting.

Delaware County Resolution No. 40 (copy embedded below) demands that New York State and New York City pay Delaware County landowners $81.3 billion in reparations over 60 years because the proposed new regulations drafted by the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) will effectively prohibit 80 percent of land in Delaware County from being drilled due to enormous setback provisions from the New York City watershed.

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Dominion Exploration | Energy Companies | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Westmoreland County

Water Tests at PA Reservoir Show No Affects from Gas Drilling
March 12, 2012March 12, 2012

In March 2009, the Westmoreland (PA) County Board of Supervisors voted to lease Municipal Authority property near the Beaver Run Reservoir for shale gas drilling to Dominion Resources. The original plan was to drill five wells (see this MDN story). Two years later, there are 13 working wells on the property with plans for another 14 wells. More importantly, testing done of the water in the reservoir and streams that flow into it show (gasp), there’s been no affect on the water from Marcellus drilling.

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Cayuga County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Public Opinion | Regulation | Wastewater

Auburn, NY Rescinds Ban on Gas Drilling Wastewater
March 9, 2012March 9, 2012

Wiser heads have prevailed in the upstate New York Finger Lakes community of Auburn—the Auburn city council has voted to once again allow the municipal sewage treatment plant to accept gas drilling wastewater.

As you may recall, MDN told you about protesters who descended on the tiny city of Auburn last year to protest not Marcellus wastewater being treated at the sewage plant, but local conventional gas drilling wastewater—something that had been going on for 15 years with no adverse effects (see this MDN story). In the rush to condemn fracking and prevent horizontal drilling in the state, ignorant protesters have fallen into the trap of protesting all gas drilling in the state—drilling that has gone on for decades.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

Sustainable Investments Institute Issues Report on Fracking
March 9, 2012March 9, 2012

The Sustainable Investments Institute (Si2) and the IRRC Institute yesterday released a new report titled “Discovering Shale Gas: An Investor Guide to Hydraulic Fracturing” (a copy of the 74-page report is embedded below). The report provides an in-depth look at the environmental and social impacts of shale gas development, identifies key questions for investors and includes 10 drilling company profiles. An expert panel representing industry, environmental groups and investor activists provided input to the report.

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

NY Republican Senator Introduces Fracking Wastewater Bill
March 9, 2012March 9, 2012

On the issue of hydraulic fracturing and shale gas drilling, the New York Republican party keeps shooting itself in the head. The latest example is a ridiculous bill just introduced into the state legislature by Long Island Republican Senator Jack Martins, 7th Senate District:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation

DRBC Update: When Will New Rules Come to a Vote?
March 8, 2012March 8, 2012

Large areas of the Marcellus Shale play not only have state oversight and regulation of drilling, but also oversight from two quasi-governmental organizations: the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) and the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC). Wells drilled in an area covered by the SRBC must go through an approval process with the SRBC first. The SRBC gets to oversee major industrial activities (not just gas drilling) anywhere in the region of tributaries—creeks and rivers—that flow into the Susquehanna River that starts near Cooperstown and flows all the way to the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.

The SRBC meets regularly, considers requests for drilling and water withdrawals from rivers and streams, and acts on those requests in a timely manner. Not so with the DRBC.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Regulation | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

Can Ohio Regulations Handle the Coming Shale Gas Boom?
March 7, 2012March 7, 2012

The question of whether or not Ohio is ready for a drilling boom in the Utica Shale may be moot, since the boom has already started. But an official from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) says with new laws passed last year, and more laws set to be passed this year, Ohio is more than ready to handle a rapid expansion of Utica and Marcellus Shale drilling in the state.

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

MDN Editor Jim Willis Interviews NY Sen. Tom Libous
March 6, 2012March 6, 2012

MDN editor Jim Willis interviewed NY State Senator Tom Libous last Friday, March 2nd. Sen. Libous is a member of Gov. Cuomo’s Hydraulic Fracturing Advisory Panel and an influential member of the NY Senate, holding the post of Deputy Majority Leader. We spoke about his recent remarks in the New York Times and whether or not his support for drilling has changed. We also spoke about the Advisory Panel’s work and where things go from here. It’s a short and informative interview, especially for New York’s landowners who are wondering whether, and when, drilling might begin in New York.

Jim interviewed Sen. Libous as special correspondent for Energy in Depth, so head on over to this page on the EID-M website and click to listen.
Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Washington County

PA Towns Banding Together to Sue State Over New Drilling Law
March 6, 2012March 6, 2012

Last month’s passage of new Marcellus drilling regulations in Pennsylvania has some local municipalities grumbling that the state’s “Act 13” regulating oil and gas drilling and superseding local zoning ordinances takes away their ability to, yes, control drilling in their local municipalities. Which of course is what the law is designed to do!

Several municipalities, Cecil Township the latest, are making moves to band together and sue the state over the new law in an effort to overturn the Act 13 provision.

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

NY Gov. Cuomo Signals Fracking Issue is “How” and Not “If”
March 5, 2012March 5, 2012

Finally some good news for New York landowners who want shale gas drilling to go forward in the state. Lately, it’s seemed as if New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was backing off his support for shale gas drilling. He elected to not even mention it in this year’s State of the State address, even though there was a section about it in his prepared remarks (see this MDN story). Then he made a comment about the status of the review process and making on determination on whether drilling will even be allowed (see this MDN story). And then a comment to a Syracuse newspaper editorial board about a decision coming “in a few months” on fracking (see this MDN story), the implied meaning was whether or not it would be allowed at all.

Add it all up and it certainly appeared that Gov. Cuomo was stepping back from his earlier support of drilling. But Andrew Cuomo is the consummate politician and perhaps that was all smokescreen. Last Friday, in a radio interview, he all but said fracking will go forward in the state, it’s just a matter of how and when it will happen, not if.

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Accidents | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Susquehanna County

AP’s Newest Non-Story About Dimock, PA
March 5, 2012March 5, 2012

From time to time, the Associated Press will write a story about the gas drilling issue. Because a huge number of newspapers in the U.S. subscribe to the AP service, they run the story and overnight a single story, or various versions of the story, is run in hundreds of newspapers nationwide creating an echo chamber making it seem as if it’s new news. It’s happened again with another non-story about Dimock, PA. By now most MDN readers will know what Dimock is about—an attempt to create a link between hydraulic fracturing and chemical contamination of a water aquifer. If you need a background on the controversy, click here for MDN’s stories on Dimock.

The latest non-story story from the AP is an announcement that the EPA, that has been conducting water testing in the Dimock area, will release its first test results this week. That’s the sum total of the news in the story. But the AP story includes lots of background and fluff. One of the interesting backgrounder interviews is with a geologist from northeastern PA near Dimock:

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