NY Antis Now Want LPG Fracking Banned Too, Letter to DEC
At the risk of sounding pedantic and endlessly repeating what we’ve said many times before–the frack ban in New York is not about water quality concerns or any of the other myriad so-called “problems” that come from using water to hydraulically fracture an oil or gas well. This is how we know. If you remove water from the equation, which is the major concern and why the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has decided to ban fracking (supposedly), anti-drillers still object to fracking. A group of virulent, hardened, and frankly nutty anti-drillers from the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Earthjustice and Frack Action have just sent a letter to the NY DEC asking the DEC to ban ALL fracking, including LPG (propane) fracking that a group of landowners in Tioga County, NY plan to use (see NY Landowners File to Frack Horizontal Well w/Waterless Tech). What has anti-drillers so terrified of LPG fracking? If LPG fracking is used in NY, it will prove that fracking can be done safely in NY–and once that happens, it’s game over for those who object to fracking. Anti-drillers’ call to ban LPG fracking points out what we’ve said for years: these people object to fracking because they irrationally, psychotically, hate fossil fuels–not because fracking pollutes water supplies, because it doesn’t…
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This sounds like something out of a Jules Verne novel. You may recall from school that Verne wrote some of the earliest sci-fi adventures ever, like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth. In Journey, Verne wrote about strange and mysterious critters that live deep in the earth–in rock caverns. Turns out Verne may not have been so far from the truth after all. And there’s a tie-in with the Marcellus Shale and with fracking. In November West Virginia University and Ohio State University received an $11 million grant by the federal government to study the Marcellus and Utica Shale (see 
In June the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a report detailing the findings of their four-year study that found no harmful effects on water supplies from fracking (see 
An Allegany County, NY attorney quietly filed a lawsuit–two months ago–against the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) over their infamous frack ban. It is the first such lawsuit that we are aware of to be filed against the DEC since the frack ban was officially declared (see 
Just when you’ve think you’ve heard it all when it comes to how evil and nasty fracking and shale drilling are, along comes another story of the horrors of shale drilling. An article in the most recent issue of the journal Invasive Plant Science and Management says shale and pipeline drilling in Colorado’s Piceance Basin (pronounced “pee awns”, located in northwestern Colorado) disturbs the dirt and because the dirt gets disturbed it gives non-native, “invasive” plants a chance to grab hold and choke out all other vegetation–or some such thing. Apparently the housing boom in Colorado that digs up more dirt than all of the drill pads and pipelines combined doesn’t have the same effect on the invaders. Maybe invasive plants don’t like the construction workers and backhoes that dig up dirt for a house foundation like they do construction workers and backhoes that dig up dirt for a drill pad or pipeline. Wait–they’re the same construction workers and backhoes? Shhh. Don’t tell the invasive plant species…
A new research study appearing in an online “journal” with very low standards, PLOS ONE, claims that hydraulic fracturing leads to an increase in hospitalization rates in the Marcellus Shale region. The research study, titled “Unconventional Gas and Oil Drilling Is Associated with Increased Hospital Utilization Rates” (full copy embedded below) on the surface appears to contain damning evidence. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University looked at hospitalization records for three northeastern Pennsylvania counties from 2007-2011–Bradford, Susquehanna and Wayne. Both Bradford and Susquehanna counties have seen a huge amount of shale drilling over that period. Wayne County, on the other hand, has seen no shale drilling because of the intransigence of the Delaware River Basin Commission and their ongoing frack ban. The researchers say that people in Bradford and Susquehanna counties go to the hospital for serious heart conditions at a rate 27% higher than those in Wayne County. Ergo, there is a connection between fracking and health issues. We are fully in favor of rigorous academic research into issues like this one. But a few things bother us about this latest “fracking kills” study…
As MDN noted last Thursday, taking a break from being on break in breathtakingly beautiful Ogunquit, Maine, a group of Tioga County, NY landowners have painted Andrew Cuomo and his Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) in a corner with respect to fracking in the Empire State (see 
Wouldn’t you know? The very day that MDN goes on vacation, a HUGE story–at least for New York State–happens. So we’re back with a single posting today. Yesterday a press conference was held in the Town of Barton (Tioga County), NY to announce that a group of landowners flying under the name of The Snyder Farm Group (five families make up the group) have contracted with Tioga Energy Partners to drill a fracked Utica Shale well, and follow it up with drilling a fracked Marcellus Shale well, using liquefied petroleum gas (LPG or propane) and sand. The wells will not use water for fracking–and therefore, according to the landowners, avoid the ban on high volume fracking recently imposed by Andrew Cuomo and his underling Joe Martens at the state Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC). There is no doubt this is huge news throughout the state–and is giving heartburn to Cuomo and Martens. What cockamamie grounds can the DEC possibly use to refuse it? It’s a brilliant move by the landowners in Tioga County…
A day after issuing the final nail in the coffin of fracking in NY (see