UC Hints Air Problems Near Drill Sites in Carroll County Research
In December MDN told you about a new air quality study in Carroll County, OH, being researched by the University of Cincinnati and Oregon State University. The study will measure air quality for pollution potentially caused by local Utica Shale drilling. A good concept and worthy of everyone’s support. The only problem we had/have is that some of the volunteers helping with the project are from a local anti-drilling group (see Carroll County Anti-Drillers Eager to Help with Air Quality Study). The full results are not yet in, but preliminary results (UC won’t release any specifics), according to the AP, say that air pollution near some well sites is “higher than those in downtown Chicago”…
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A pair of bills recently passed both the Pennsylvania House and Senate now sit on Gov. Tom Corbett’s desk that are sure to delight landowners and (likely) frustrate drillers. The prime sponsor and author of both bills is PA Rep. Tina Pickett (Republican, Bradford/Sullivan/Susquehanna). House Bill (HB) 2278 will require drillers to file monthly production numbers with the Dept. of Environmental Protection. They currently file every six months. The second bill, HB 402, requires a driller to present a “recordable surrender document” to a landowner within 30 days of a lease cancellation/termination. With such a document, landowners know for sure, they have proof, that they can re-lease with someone else if they so choose…
Oilfield services companies span the range from the Halliburtons and Schlumbergers to the mom and pop companies with a single drilling rig. Fortis Energy Services, a privately held company headquartered in Michigan (but with operations in the Marcellus/Utica) is not nearly as big as Halliburton, but it’s way bigger than a mom and pop. Fortis operates in the Midwest and northeast with a number of rigs. They’ve just added two more “workover” rigs to their fleet–one of them dedicated to the Marcellus/Utica. What’s a workover rig?…
A hat tip and big thank you to national conservative news/blog site The Daily Caller–a major source of news both inside and outside the Washington, DC beltway. MDN was reading a story on a topic of interest to us in The DC–about President Obama’s EPA and Bureau of Land Management waiting until after the election until they unveil more onerous new regulations on the oil and gas industry–when early in the story we spotted this quote from/reference to MDN…
We won’t bother to chronicle, once again, the long fight in New York State over the right of a town board with 3-5 members deciding that every resident in a township will lose the right to use their property the way they want to (even though property ownership is sacrosanct under the U.S. Constitution). In the People’s Republic of New York, the mob rules. The rule of law is out the window. And so, a few New York high court judges who want to retain their posts under Gov. Andrew Cuomo, decided nobody really reads the Constitution anymore anyway–and that local town boards (not individual landowners) will now decide whether or not shale drilling will take place (see