EPA to Hold Hearings on Rules to Reduce Fracking Air Pollution
Being “forced” by a lawsuit, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) drafted new rules and regulations for oil and gas drillers that use hydraulic fracturing. The new rules require drillers to use new or improved processes and equipment (at great expense) in an attempt to cut the level of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other air pollutants the EPA says are emitted during the completion of hydraulically fractured wells. MDN wrote an extensive article on this, complete with a copy of the 604-page list of rule changes (see here).
The EPA is moving forward with several public hearings on the rule changes, the first of which will be in Pittsburgh on Sept. 27th.
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In the ongoing heated debate over hydraulic fracturing, can we all at least agree that chemical contamination does not come from the mostly water and sand (with a little bit of chemical additive) that is pumped a mile or more below the earth’s surface? The general public hears from the media echo chamber that “fracking threatens water supplies” and assumes that somehow, in some way, chemicals will rise up from a mile below the ground and contaminate water wells and aquifers near the surface. It just doesn’t happen—it’s a physical impossibility. Here’s an excellent analogy recently printed in Popular Mechanics to put it in perspective:
When it comes to hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, one size does not fit all with respect to regulation, and moratoriums. Most people caught up in the frenzy of opposing fracking, especially in New York, may not realize that there are thousands of wells drilled in New York State, right now, that are fracked every year, and have been going back for the past 60 years. And with no cases of groundwater contamination.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) issued a “final” draft version of proposed new drilling regulations yesterday (see link to full copy below) after incorporating new information it received from a private study about the industrialization affects of drilling on local communities. The new draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) weighs in at 1,537 pages—a behemoth. DEC Commissioner Joe Martens set up a 90-day public comment period to end December 12th, instead of the previously promised 60-day period.
A new peer-reviewed study from Carnegie Mellon University says that Marcellus gas has less impact on global warming than coal. The study, published in the Institute of Physics Aug. 5th issue of “Environmental Research Letters” is a direct refutation of the Cornell study released in April by professors Robert Howarth and Anthony Ingraffea. The Cornell study was based on sketchy data (admitted to by Howarth & Ingraffea), and pure guesswork. It made the claim that shale gas was worse for global warming and the environment than burning coal.