Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Health Impacts | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Research | Statewide PA
PA Spending $3.9M on Flawed Studies to Link Fracking with Cancer
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, a liberal Democrat who sometimes supports the shale gas industry (as long as he can tax it) has caved to demands from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to launch a “study” in a bid to “prove” cases of childhood cancer in southwestern PA can be tied to shale drilling in the region. A pair of studies, actually. The studies won’t be completed for three years, after Wolf is out of office, so he gets credit for caring, but he won’t be around for the fallout when it happens.
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Washington (PA) Observer-Reporter reporter Rick Schrum recently went on a tour of fracking operations at a Range Resources site in Allegheny County, PA. Schrum interviewed Range’s water operations manager about how and where Range gets the water to drill and frack its wells.
Speaking of electric fracking, this past summer CNX Resources converted to using 100% electric frac fleets in its drilling operations (see 
Is this time different? The oil and gas industry is known for its “boom and bust” cycle. The price of oil and gas goes high, drillers jump on the bandwagon and inevitably produce far more than the market demands resulting in a price bust and a slowdown in drilling as it becomes unprofitable. Until the next cycle.
Last week MDN told you that oral arguments would be heard on Thursday at the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in what we believe is one of (perhaps THE) most important shale cases ever in the Keystone State (see 
This 
Last week CNN inflicted a seven-hour “town hall” discussion with Democrat presidential candidates about so-called climate change (man-made global warming) on its handful of viewers. Fox News’ Tucker Carlson called it an 
Researchers from Pennsylvania State University, using a new testing protocol that uses existing, affordable water chemistry tests, have tested 20,751 water well samples from wells located near high levels of both conventional and shale oil and gas drilling in PA. The tests show whether or not existing/naturally occurring methane is in the water well, or whether methane from nearby drilling is present in the water. Know what they found? Out of 20,751 samples, they found 17 wells (0.08%, less than one-tenth of a single percent) showed “possible signs of methane contamination.” Statistically speaking, it’s zero.
A paid political activist who is not a doctor but works for the so-called Physicians for Social Responsibility (left wing group), told a hearing in Murrysville (Westmoreland County), PA on Wednesday that she could not prove fracking leads to negative health affects on those living near the activity, but in the very next breath she essentially said it does, saying there’s a “strong correlation” between fracking an ill health. Her proof? A list of Big Green-paid for “health studies” (propaganda campaigns).
A small group of New York landowners in Tioga County, NY continue to pressure the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to allow them to drill and frack a single Utica well using LPG, or liquefied petroleum gas (i.e. propane). The DEC under the direction of Andrew Cuomo continues to purposely drag its feet in approving the project. The landowners are not giving up and hope to prove that fracking in NY can happen. They’re keepin’ the dream alive.
Another so-called “study” has appeared bashing Pennsylvania Marcellus fracking. This one is co-authored by a global warming Kool Aid drinker affiliated with the Post Carbon Institute, making the claim pregnant women in Pennsylvania have a 4% higher chance of becoming anxious and/or depressed if they live near fracking activities. How these people are not laughed out of any room they walk into is beyond us.
A new group has formed in New York State with the aim of using a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision as ammunition to sue NY over its ban on hydraulic fracturing. The new group, called Landowner Advocates of New York (LANY), was started by MDN friend Vic Furman. Could this finally be the solution to force Andrew Cuomo to allow fracking?
Yet another cockamamie “study” (i.e. propaganda) about the negatives of fracking–this one done by the University of New Hampshire claiming a few hikers and outdoor enthusiasts in Pennsylvania will have to find someplace else to hike and enthuse…because of evil Marcellus fracking. The thing that really angers us is that Pennsylvania taxpayers paid for this “study”!