Hydraulic Fracturing

The New York Times continues its vendetta against drilling in the Marcellus Shale—it sells papers and God knows they sell far fewer today than they did even a year ago. MDN wonders what made-up quotes pulled from past public statements adorn this new article? The theme of the new article: “Yes, yes, drilling companies say they’re recycling more wastewater (some even approaching 100 percent), but not all of them do! And even recycling produces nasty stuff that pollutes water supplies anyway. So pay no attention to all that recycling talk.” And of course, Pennsylvania continues to be the whipping boy.

Read More “NY Times Keeps Up the Vendetta Against Drilling in the Marcellus Shale with Another Article in the Series”

One of the chief objections of those who oppose drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale is the amount of water used in drilling—an average of 3-4 million gallons per well. Environmentalists raise the alarm of sourcing the water from rivers and streams, and the disposal of what’s left over.

Here’s how the numbers break down: It takes between 100,000 and 300,000 gallons of water during the drilling process itself, and another 3-4 million gallons of water gets mixed with sand and chemicals and pumped in under pressure to fracture the shale, releasing the gas. Anywhere from 10 to 50 percent of the water comes back out—something called “flowback.”

Read More “PA Marcellus Gas Drillers Close to Recycling 100 Percent of Wastewater, Now Use Just a Few Chemicals in Fracking”

Below is a detailed response from the Marcellus Shale Coalition to the New York Times “hit piece” on gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale (see MDN’s review of that article here).

Read More “Marcellus Shale Coalition Provides Devastating Critique of NYT Anti-Gas Article”

Have no fear, the great New York Times is now on the case of natural gas drilling, and it has “uncovered” some rather disturbing news:

With hydrofracking, a well can produce over a million gallons of wastewater that is often laced with highly corrosive salts, carcinogens like benzene and radioactive elements like radium, all of which can occur naturally thousands of feet underground. Other carcinogenic materials can be added to the wastewater by the chemicals used in the hydrofracking itself.

While the existence of the toxic wastes has been reported, thousands of internal documents obtained by The New York Times from the Environmental Protection Agency, state regulators and drillers show that the dangers to the environment and health are greater than previously understood.(1)

Read More “New York Times Publishes Hit Piece on Natural Gas Drilling, Quoted Source Responds to the Article”