Marcellus Industry AWOL at Philadelphia DRBC Frack Ban Hearings
Last week the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) held two public hearings in Philadelphia about its proposed plan to ban fracking in the Delaware River Basin (see Low Turnout for Philly DRBC Frack Ban Hearing, Antis Dominate). As we pointed out in our post, you would think a city with 1.5 million residents would turn out more than 120 people on a topic that is sold as “threat to everyone’s drinking water.” But no. Just a relative handful. However, the handful was almost exclusively in favor of the ban. One of two speaker who spoke against the ban was Dan Markind, an attorney in Philly. We’ve highlighted Dan’s comments here on MDN a few times over the years. Smart guy. We don’t always agree with his take, but we do this time. Dan circulated his thoughts after the DRBC hearing. His words are humbling. Dan makes the point that although many who spoke in favor of the frack ban have made up their minds and won’t change, some in the audience were open to being persuaded otherwise. Problem is, nobody from “our side” was there! One rep from the API spoke and left. And that’s it, beside Dan. We fielded nobody to present our side of the argument. As hard as it is to attend these types of events, attend we must. Here’s Dan’s take–that we missed a big opportunity by being AWOL at the DRBC hearings in Philly…
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Philadelphia is the sixth most populous city in the United States, with over 1.5 million residents. And yet *maybe* 120 people turned out yesterday for a Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) hearing on their proposed plan to permanently ban fracking in the Delaware River Basin. A pair of hearings were held earlier this week in rural northeast PA–in Waymart–where the turnout was upward of 150 people! Judging from the wild claims by green groups like THE Delaware Riverkeeper that thousands (millions!) of people don’t want fracking in the river basin, you’d think more than maybe 120 people would turn up for a hearing in a city like Philly. Could it be not all that many people in southeast PA give a hoot about fracking in two northeastern PA counties? That thought crossed our minds as we read the accounts of those who showed up at yesterday’s meetings in Philly. Yes, antis outnumbered those in favor of fracking, but that’s to be expected in Philly. Here’s a recap of yesterday’s meetings…
Yesterday saw the first two of six public hearings held by the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) on their plan to permanently ban fracking in the Delaware River Basin. The hearings were held in Waymart (Wayne County), PA. The DRBC frack ban would essentially ban shale drilling in two northeastern PA counties: Wayne and Pike. Landowners there have been battling the DRBC going on 10 years. At first it was a temporary ban (like New York’s). Now it has metastasized into a full blow permanent ban–if DRBC gets its way. Below we have two reports–one from mainstream media, the other from MDN friend Tom Shepstone, who hilariously was called “Crapstone” by an anti addressing one of the hearings. You know you’re being effective when they start calling you silly names! Tom said it was landowners versus special interest group groupies at both hearings. Here’s an update on what happened…
Sometimes it’s hard not to grow weary fighting against Big Green and their seemingly endless sources of funding (and a sympathetic mainstream media) when it comes to the issue of fracking. The very word itself, fracking, is a moniker slapped on the industry as a way of implying there’s something dirty and vulgar about what we do. We can’t tell you how many times readers have lectured us to not use that word–fracking. But the word is now entrenched in the public psyche, so we use it. How do we effectively counter the wrong/false statements and arguments used by Big Green and their supporters? Simply using facts and science, to counter the emotional puking that comes from Big Green, is not enough. The United Kingdom is now entering a phase long past here in the U.S. The U.K. is just now beginning to drill and frack its very first wells. There are more than 300 anti-fracking groups in the U.K. and an almost endless barrage of negative press about fracking in the country. The head of communications recently granted an interview to PR Week about how they are countering the opposition there. It’s an excellent interview and gives us some ideas about how we might counter the opposition on this side of the pond…
In September, MDN told you that the obsequious members of the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) had slavishly obeyed their radical environmental masters by voting to move forward with a permanent ban on fracking in the Delaware River Basin (see 
In December, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) released “interim final technical guidance” (i.e., new regulations) for drilling Marcellus Shale natural gas wells in areas where there is longwall coal mining. Sometimes drillers want to lease and drill under coal mines. Since coal mines sink large holes in the ground, there are existing guidelines in place for how closely an oil/gas well can be drilled on or under a coal mine–guidelines put in place in 1957. As a result of legislation passed in 2011 called Act 2, a review was conducted to see if the standards for oil/gas drilling near coal mines might be modified, allowing such drilling to happen in conditions not currently allowed. A study was performed and in January 2017 the DEP rejected that study–preferring to keep a default ban on any drilling under coal mines for the time being (see 
The difference between the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) and Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) with respect to the issue of shale drilling is striking. The SRBC wisely knows it is not charged with regulating oil and gas drilling within their borders. They are charged with (and do a great job of) managing the water resources within the basin. On the other hand, the DRBC is populated with ultra-liberals who disregard Constitutional law and have taken it on themselves to simply ban shale drilling within their basin. A court case is now playing out that will slap the DRBC back into its proper role. The DRBC claims the water that flows through the basin provides drinking water for 15 million people, including New York City. The SRBC provides drinking water for 4.1 million people. If fracking really does “harm” the environment–specifically water resources–you would think with thousands of Marcellus wells drilled in the SRBC area something would have shown up long ago. But it has not–which exposes the lies being used to try and stop fracking in the DRBC area. In December Penn State University’s Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research entered the lion’s den–by giving a presentation and answering questions at a meeting of the Upper Delaware Council, held in Narrowsburg, NY. David Yoxtheimer from MCOR compared the SRBC to the DRBC and used science to debunk many of the wild claims heard in DRBC’s efforts to ban fracking. While Yoxtheimer’s presentation was by-the-book and based on science (he’s not a combative guy), there’s no missing the fact that he obliterated the anti-fracking arguments put forth by the DRBC…
Yesterday the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the selection of six projects to receive approximately $30 million in federal funding for cost-shared research and development in unconventional oil and natural gas recovery. One of the six projects is for the Appalachian region (Marcellus/Utica area). DOE is chipping in $8 million and another $3.1 million is coming from other sources for a total of $11.1 million to study “the resource potential for multi-play production of emerging unconventional reservoirs in the Nora Gas Field of southwest Virginia.” That’s the first we’ve heard of the Nora Gas Field. Turns out the Nora field, located mainly in Dickenson County, VA, has a lot of conventional and coalbed methane gas wells. The research project will determine if the gas locked away in the Nora might be accessed with horizontal fracking. The project will also look at “novel completion strategies for lateral wells in the unconventional Lower Huron Shale” and the “resource potential of the Cambrian Rogersville Shale.” In other words, this research may well lead to active shale drilling in the Old Dominion State…
Schlumberger is the world’s largest oilfield services (OFS) company. Weatherford International is the world’s fourth largest OFS company. They both have operations in the Marcellus/Utica region. We’ve posted a number of stories about Weatherford’s financial troubles–and seemingly inevitable march toward bankruptcy (
Vapid Hollywood stars and starlettes are always amusing. They often display their total ignorance in very public ways. Thing is, they’re stupid and they don’t even know it. They fall prey to their own publicity, thinking that because millions of people know who they are and love them (for their acting abilities), that gives them above average intelligence. The latest Hollywood dumb dumb to make a fool of herself is Jodie Foster. In a recent interview, Foster trash-talked the current trend of big budget superhero movies. She calls them the cinematic equivalent of fracking. Foster doesn’t even know what fracking is, or that the clothes she wore while uttering such inanities are the result of fracking. Or that the plastic microphone she spoke into was created as a result of fracking. Or that the jets she flies on, the Hollywood mansion she lives in, etc. etc. are all a result of fracking. What a glittering jewel of colossal ignorance is Jodie Foster…
In 2015 MDN told you about an Allegany County, NY attorney who had filed a lawsuit against the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) over their infamous frack ban. It was the first such lawsuit to be filed against the DEC since the frack ban was officially declared (see 
Whatever happened to the idea of fracking a shale well in Tioga County, NY using liquefied petroleum gas (LPG, or propane)? We sometimes get asked that question. In July 2015 a group of landowners flying under the name of The Snyder Farm Group (five families make up the group) contracted with Tioga Energy Partners (based in Texas) to drill a fracked Utica Shale well, and follow it up with drilling a fracked Marcellus Shale well, using LPG and sand (see 
Invasion of the body snatchers has become reality in Westmoreland County, Virginia. The Westmoreland Board of Supervisors passed amendments Monday night “to strictly limit gas and oil drilling.” However, that’s just a stopgap measure. The real aim is a full-out, flat-out ban on any kind of oil and gas drilling. Right after taking the vote, the illustrious body-snatched supervisors asked the county attorney to begin researching a moratorium they can enact without landing them in jail. Good luck with that. Virginia doesn’t have the Marcellus/Utica under it–at least not very much. But Virginia does have another shale layer–the Taylorsville. We commented back in 2014 that the state is inching closer to allowing fracking in the Taylorsville and other potential basins (see 
We knew it was coming. We told you back in September that the obsequious members of the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) will slavishly obey their radical environmental masters by voting to move forward with a permanent ban on fracking in the Delaware River Basin (see 
Researchers with Halliburton and EQT have created a new friction reducer, testing it in three Marcellus wells. What’s a friction reducer? It is a chemical substance used to reduce the amount of friction water (or other liquids) encounters in a pipe. Lots of water (and recycled wastewater) is pumped down the bore hole to frack a Marcellus well–upward of 5 million gallons. About 20% of that water comes back out of the hole and is recycled and used again for more fracking. The problem is, the wastewater has a lot of minerals in it, i.e. it’s super “salty.” In order to keep recycling and using the wastewater to frack more wells, typically fresh water has to be added because as the wastewater gets more salty, it encounters more friction along the pipe. So a friction reducer is needed to keep the liquid flowing fast along the pipe. The innovation–the breakthrough that Halliburton has pioneered–means that drillers won’t have to add fresh water to recycled wastewater for fracking. They can now use 100% recycled wastewater with no fresh water added. Even as the wastewater is reused again and again, getting more salty, it can still be used without mixing in fresh water…