Once Again Boys & Girls, Fracking Does Not Cause Earthquakes

In cycles of about every six months, we get a new round of stories along the lines that "fracking causes earthquakes too!" Which is not true. Or mostly not true. As with all things shale-related, anti-drillers take a kernel of truth and blow it out of proportion, making it untrue. That’s the case with fracking and earthquakes.

A British scientist leading a research team at Durham University has just published new research analyzing "hundreds of thousands" of cases of fracking to see whether or not they produced earthquakes. What did the researchers find? In hundreds of thousands of cases of fracking, there have been three cases where earthquakes were caused by the fracking that could be felt–and they were extremely mild, on the low end of the Richter scale. Three. Let’s run the numbers. If we assume the sample size was 300,000, 3 divided by 300,000 is 0.00001. Your odds of getting struck by lightening standing on one foot in the middle of a snow storm in Bali are greater. Yeah, fracking does not cause earthquakes–ever. So what about the earthquakes in Youngstown last year?…

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NY Assemblyman Try to Stop the Clock on Fracking Comment Period

Three anti-fracking New York Assembly Democrats—all three chairmen of important Assembly committees—sent a letter on Monday (full copy embedded below) to Gov. Andrew Cuomo asking, or rather demanding, that the state Dept. of Environmental Conservation stop the clock on the current 30-day public comment period. Their rationale? An old internal DEC report produced and never released to the public says fracking won’t harm public health. “Wrong answer” is their response—and they intend to make noise about it until they get the “right answer”—which of course (for them) is that fracking does harm public health.

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Vernon Township Contiguous Landowners Group

Area covered: Vernon Township, Crawford County, Pennsylvania
Membership: 240+ members, 8000+ acres
Contact: Michael P. Duggan, 724-357-9862 Home/Office, dugganenergy@comcast.net, vtcaalandowners@gmail.com

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Youngstown Plant Produces Special Steel Pipe for Drilling

More than two and half years ago V&M said they would build a new $650 million steel pipe plant in Youngstown, Ohio and create 350 new jobs (see this MDN story). The new plant would manufacture steel pipes used in Marcellus and Utica Shale drilling. Last week the first pipe to be produced at the promised plant rolled (pun intended) off the production line.

But just what kind of pipe is V&M making for the shale drilling industry? A special kind of pipe called OCTG…

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Mineral Rights Group North East

Area covered: Ashtabula, Geauga, Lake, and Portage counties in Ohio
Membership: 2,000 official acres, 20,000+ interested acres
Contact: Mineral Rights Group, 330-333-0427, info@mineralrightsgroup.com
Web: //mineralrightsgroup.com/groups/mrg-ne/

5 STAR Landowners Group

Area covered: Tyler County, WV
Membership: Not disclosed (only adding acreage contiguous to existing members)
Contact: James Milleson (JRM Consulting), 740-658-3960, jrmconsulting@ohioacres4u.com
Web: //www.ohioacres4u.com

Western Tyler Mineral and Landowner Group

Area covered: Union District and adjoining properties in Ellsworth, Lincoln, and Meade in Tyler County, WV
Membership: Not disclosed
Contact: (304) 771-1063, info@TylerCH4Us
Web: //www.tylerch4us.com

Indiana County Landowner Group

Area covered: All towns in Indiana County
Membership: 5,000 acres and growing
Contact: CX-Energy, 724-933-1311, indiana@cx-energy.com
Web: //www.cx-energy.com

Crawford County Landowner Group

Area covered: All towns in Crawford County
Membership: 200 members, 7,500 acres and growing
Contact: CX-Energy, 724-933-1311, crawford@cx-energy.com
Web: //www.cx-energy.com

Clarion County Landowner Group

Area covered: All towns in Clarion County
Membership: 3,000 acres and growing
Contact: CX-Energy, 724-933-1311, clarion@cx-energy.com
Web: //www.cx-energy.com

Noxen Area Gas Group

Area covered: Southern Wyoming County, PA
Membership: 150 landowners, 8,500 acres
Contact: Joel Field, 570-298-0962, JoelField@WhistlePigPumpkin.com

Sullivan Delaware Property Owners Association

Area covered: New York side of upper Delaware River – Hancock, Freemont, Delaware and Cochecton townships in Sullivan and Delaware counties, NY
Membership: 60,000+ acres
Contact: Noel van Swol, 845-887-4728, shorteddy@hotmail.com