Hammer Falls: New EPA Edict on Storage Tanks Used in Drilling
Day by day, a little more of the thing that once made America great–freedom and liberty–dies. Hey, no big deal. It’s all done in the name of health and safety. The latest example: The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has just issued more rules that trample individual states’ rights to regulate oil and gas drilling. It’s the EPA’s ongoing back-door method of one day fully regulating oil and gas drilling throughout the U.S.
The latest EPA rules have to do with oil and gas storage tanks and the emissions that come from them. Drillers and those operating such storage tanks have until either April 15, 2014 or April 15, 2015 (depending on when the tank went into service) to comply with new rules reducing volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions by 95%. The EPA’s latest edict:
Read More “Hammer Falls: New EPA Edict on Storage Tanks Used in Drilling”
Are you a driller, oilfield services or other supply chain company whose primary activity revolves around the PA or WV Marcellus Shale? If so, there’s a good chance you’re going to get audited by the U.S. Labor Department (DOL). Best to get your records (and hiring practices) in order now.
Anti-drillers are nervous that one of the big-money spigots for funding their so-called research into the dangers of fracking is about to be shut off. In a developing soap opera, the “longtime head” of environmental grant making for the Heinz Endowments, Caren Glotfelty, has been shown the door. A number of anti-drilling studies have been funded by Glotfelty during her tenure at Heinz. Bobby Vagt, president of Heinz Enowments, will fill in for Glotfelty until a replacement is found. Vagt, you may recall, is involved with the Center for Sustainable Shale Development (see 
The recently signed Pennsylvania Royalty Bill SB259 provides extra transparency for landowners in how royalties are calculated, but it also introduces forced pooling for some landowners with old, pre-Marcellus leases (see 
Technically this is not a story about the Marcellus or Utica Shale, but it is a story about fracking in shale, and making a splash among anti-drillers, so it deserves our attention and consideration. Researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) have just published a peer-reviewed study in the journal Environmental Science & Technology titled, “An evaluation of water quality in private drinking water wells near natural gas extraction sites in the Barnett Shale Formation” (full copy embedded below for MDN subscribers). The study looks at 100 water wells in the Barnett Shale region of north Texas. UTA researchers used data from the 1990s–before horizontal drilling and fracking began in the region–and data from their own tests conducted in 2011.