Ladies and gents, sorry for our absence.  There is renewed interest in spending time maintaining this site, as we have primarily been relying on our Facebook page to deliver headlines, but we will begin to again post periodic items here as well.  Facebook is certainly the place for up to the minute news, we urge you to check out our group and request to join.  The communities and activists that are now binding together in an effort to protect our limited water supply is mind-bending!  It was just two years ago most were saying “what’s fracking?”  Look how far we have come, folks,

Please dig deep and continue your efforts!  You are our only hope.  Thanks for all that you do.

The masses now know that fracking is a high-risk operation, that regulations are too lax, that inspectors are barely existent, and that the worse case scenario, meaning a water supply being contaminated – yes, that can happen.  That has happened.  That happens.

Still unclear on that?  Goto google.com and enter “water contamination fracking” and have fun.  You will read some arguments that fracking is not the problem.  Keep reading.  It doesn’t take long to get the idea.

And here’s a few random related headlines to get you going:

SCIENCE: Peer-Reviewed Study: Fracking Fluids May Migrate to Aquifers, Researcher Says – http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-05-03/fracking-fluids-may-migrate-to-aquifers-researcher-says

ACTION: Help the Delaware Riverkeeper protect the Delaware from Gas Drilling – http://www.delawareriverkeeper.org/act-now/urgent-details.aspx?Id=109

SCIENCE: Scientists predict groundwater contamination in as little as 10 years, they’re talking about the wastewater seeping up through the limestone from 7000 feet down.  So much for that wastewater staying put.  What goes down must come up.  http://www.marcellusprotest.org/myers_17Apr2012

ACTION: Get the Facts on Fracking Wastewater webinar – http://eany.convio.net/site/Calendar?view=Detail&id=100221&autologin=true&AddInterest=1081

ACTION: “Stop the Frack Attack” Call to Action – http://www.stopthefrackattack.org/call-to-action/

NEWS: Dirty dealings of the industry: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/02/us-chesapeake-mcclendon-hedge-idUSBRE8410GG20120502

NEWS: Dory Hippauf, an absolute champion of the cause, offers: Connecting the Dots: The Marcellus Natural Gas Play Players – http://commonsense2.com/2011/12/naturalgasdrilling/connecting-the-dots-the-marcellus-natural-gas-play-players-part-1/

VIDEO: One woman’s mystery medical saga, hear her speak – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hB33D105ak&feature=share

NEWS: Residents Fed Up with Bad Water Flee Shale Drilling Areas – http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2012/04/30/residents-fed-up-with-bad-water-flee-shale-drilling-areas/

ACTION: Support New Yorkers against Fracking – http://www.nyagainstfracking.org/#.T5rgv4vOKmk.facebook

LETTERS: Letter to the Editor – Marcellus Issues – So Sure of Permitting they Don’t Bother Following Construction Dates  – http://doddridgenews.com/letter-to-the-editor-marcellus-issues/

SCIENCE: Updated Cornell Study Shows Fracking Causes More Global Warming Than Coal – http://inhabitat.com/updated-cornell-study-shows-fracking-causes-more-global-warming-than-coal/

BLOGS: Frack Waste Causing Fish Cancer? – http://keeptapwatersafe.org/2012/04/17/frack-waste-causing-fish-cancer/

VIDEO: The untested science of fracking, 16-minute video, worth a look – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEHz8SSfFJs

SCIENCE: The Fracking Frenzy’s Impact on Women – http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/04/04-3

VIDEO: Couldn’t help it, children talking about fracking – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIFP0bk_AaY

SCIENCE: Confirmed, Fracking Tied to Unusual Rise in Earthquakes in U.S. – http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-04-12/earthquake-outbreak-in-central-u-dot-s-dot-tied-to-drilling-wastewater

SCIENCE: Another one for good measure, study conducted by the USGS – http://www.frackcheckwv.net/2012/04/10/deep-well-injections-cause-increased-earthquake-activity/

VIDEO: Ignitable Drinking Water in Candor, NY, Above Marcellus Shale – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEtgvwllNpg

NEWS: Doctors Forbidden From Sharing Info With Fracking Victims (seriously?) – http://greenglobaltravel.com/2012/03/27/eco-news-doctors-forbidden-from-sharing-info-with-patients-exposed-to-effects-of-fracking/

ACTION: Donate to SavetheWaterTable.org today to help us continue the fight to protect our water!  Many thanks!

And to all, keep up the good fight.

Source : FrackCheckWV by Duane Nichols on 12.20.2011

Four myths frequently reported by the gas industry were recently described by Professor Anthony Ingraffea, who is a Faculty Fellow at the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future at Cornell University:

Myth 1. Fracking is a 60-year-old, safe, well proven technology – -

Yes, fracking is 60 years old. But using this shorthand obscures the truth that what’s at issue here isn’t really just fracking. It’s the entire process of coaxing gas from shale using high-volume, slickwater fracking with long laterals from clustered, multi-well pads. Used together, they form a new process, having been introduced about five six years ago, the jury is still very much out on its safety.

Myth 2. Fluid migration from faulty wells is rare – – -

Fluid migration is not rare. For example, industry researchers Watson and Bachu, in a Society of Petroleum Engineers paper in 2009, examined 352,000 Canadian wells and found sustained casing pressure and gas migration. They found that about 12 per cent of newer wells leaked, considerably more than older wells. Also, EPA found benzene, methane and chemicals in water-monitoring wells in Pavilion, Wyoming.

Myth 3. The use of clustered, multi-well drilling pads reduces surface impacts – – -

Such pad sites are large and growing, up to 10 acres or more. Newer sites, in Canada, are bigger than 50 acres, and each will leave behind clusters of wellheads and holding tanks for decades. Cluster drilling facilitates and prolongs intense industrialization and leaves a larger, more concentrated, and very long-term footprint, not a smaller and shorter one.

Myth 4. Natural gas is a “clean” fossil fuel – – -

The newest evidence here is discouraging. NASA climate scientist Drew Shindell’s work, published in Science, shows that methane (i.e. natural gas) is 105 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a global warming contributor over a 20-year time horizon, and 33 times more powerful over a century. Unfortunately, unconventional gas drilling techniques actually leak more methane than conventional ones. Leakage happens routinely during regular drilling, fracking and flowback operations, liquid unloading, processing, and along pipelines and at storage facilities.

Other myths were also mentioned in the article: “There are plenty of other myths swirling around this debate which require analysis: local job-creation versus the reality of imported expertise from Oklahoma and Texas; development of a home-grown resource versus selling gas on the world markets; revitalized, vibrant local economies versus boom-and-bust syndromes of strangled small business investment and profits sent to Norway or China; natural gas as a short-term bridge fuel to renewables, versus an impediment to developing the long-term sustainable energy future.

Source : ProPublica, Dec. 8, 2011, 8:18 p.m. by Abrahm Lustgarten and Nicholas Kusnetz

In a first, federal environment officials today scientifically linked underground water pollution with hydraulic fracturing, concluding that contaminants found in central Wyoming were likely caused by the gas drilling process.

The findings by the Environmental Protection Agency come partway through a separate national study by the agency to determine whether fracking presents a risk to water resources.

In the 121-page draft report released today, EPA officials said that the contamination near the town of Pavillion, Wyo., had most likely seeped up from gas wells and contained at least 10 compounds known to be used in frack fluids.

“The presence of synthetic compounds such as glycol ethers … and the assortment of other organic components is explained as the result of direct mixing of hydraulic fracturing fluids with ground water in the Pavillion gas field,” the draft report states. “Alternative explanations were carefully considered.”

See the rest of this entry »

by Abrahm Lustgarten ProPublica, Nov. 10, 2011

As the country awaits results from a nationwide safety study on the natural gas drilling process of fracking, a separate government investigation into contamination in a place where residents have long complained that drilling fouled their water has turned up alarming levels of underground pollution.

A pair of environmental monitoring wells drilled deep into an aquifer in Pavillion, Wyo., contain high levels of cancer-causing compounds and at least one chemical commonly used in hydraulic fracturing, according to new water test results released yesterday by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The findings are consistent with water samples the EPA has collected from at least 42 homes in the area since 2008, when ProPublica began reporting on foul water and health concerns in Pavillion and the agency started investigating reports of contamination there.

Last year — after warning residents not to drink or cook with the water and to ventilate their homes when they showered — the EPA drilled the monitoring wells to get a more precise picture of the extent of the contamination.

The Pavillion area has been drilled extensively for natural gas over the last two decades and is home to hundreds of gas wells. Residents have alleged for nearly a decade that the drilling — and hydraulic fracturing in particular — has caused their water to turn black and smell like gasoline. Some residents say they suffer neurological impairment, loss of smell, and nerve pain they associate with exposure to pollutants.

The gas industry — led by the Canadian company EnCana, which owns the wells in Pavillion — has denied that its activities are responsible for the contamination. EnCana has, however, supplied drinking water to residents.

The information released yesterday by the EPA was limited to raw sampling data: The agency did not interpret the findings or make any attempt to identify the source of the pollution. From the start of its investigation, the EPA has been careful to consider all possible causes of the contamination and to distance its inquiry from the controversy around hydraulic fracturing.

Still, the chemical compounds the EPA detected are consistent with those produced from drilling processes, including one — a solvent called 2-Butoxyethanol (2-BE) — widely used in the process of hydraulic fracturing. The agency said it had not found contaminants such as nitrates and fertilizers that would have signaled that agricultural activities were to blame.

The wells also contained benzene at 50 times the level that is considered safe for people, as well as phenols — another dangerous human carcinogen — acetone, toluene, naphthalene and traces of diesel fuel.

The EPA said the water samples were saturated with methane gas that matched the deep layers of natural gas being drilled for energy. The gas did not match the shallower methane that the gas industry says is naturally occurring in water, a signal that the contamination was related to drilling and was less likely to have come from drilling waste spilled above ground.

EnCana has recently agreed to sell its wells in the Pavillion area to Texas-based oil and gas company Legacy Reserves for a reported $45 million, but has pledged to continue to cooperate with the EPA’s investigation. EnCana bought many of the wells in 2004, after the first problems with groundwater contamination had been reported.

The EPA’s research in Wyoming is separate from the agency’s ongoing national study of hydraulic fracturing’s effect on water supplies, and is being funded through the Superfund cleanup program.

The EPA says it will release a lengthy draft of the Pavillion findings, including a detailed interpretation of them, later this month.

Source : FrackCheckWV

Water Well Contaminated by Fracking, Under Conditions Prevailing in 1982

by DUANE NICHOLS on AUGUST 4, 2011

In 1982, the Kaiser Gas Company drilled a gas well on the property of Mr. James Parsons in Jackson County, WV, according to a 1987 EPA report to the US Congress. The well was fractured using a typical fracturing fluid or gel, common at that time.

The residual fracturing fluid migrated into Mr. Parson’s water well according to an analysis by the WV Environmental Health Services Laboratory of well water samples taken from the property. Dark and light gelatinous material (fracturing fluid) was found, along with white fibers. (The gas well was located less than 1,000 feet from the water well which was 416 feet deep. Four old gas wells were also nearby.)

The chief of the laboratory advised that the water well was contaminated and unfit for domestic use, and that an alternative source of domestic water had to be found. Analysis showed the water to contain high levels of fluoride, sodium, iron and manganese. The water, according to State officials, had a hydrocarbon odor, indicating the presence of gas. Mr. Parsons was unable to resume the use of the well as a domestic water source.

According to a recent report from the Environmental Working Group, “When you add up the gel in the water, the presence of abandoned wells and the documented ability of drilling fluids to migrate through these wells into underground water supplies, there is a lot of evidence that EPA got it right and that this was indeed a case of hydraulic fracturing contamination of groundwater. Now it’s up to EPA to pick up where it left off 25 years ago and determine the true risks of fracking so that our drinking water can be protected.”

Source : Charleston Gazette

WELLSBURG, W.Va. — A Northern Panhandle city is saying no thanks to natural gas drilling and the revenue it can provide.

Media outlets report that Wellsburg City Council voted Tuesday night to ban drilling and fracking within 1 mile of the city limits. The ordinance extends the ban outside Wellsburg’s limits because of concerns about the city’s drinking water.

City Solicitor Bill Cipriani says state law allows cities to extend their authority within a mile outside their borders if necessary.

Chesapeake Energy objected to the ban. Chesapeake is among the many companies rushing to tap the Marcellus shale reserve.

Other local governments in West Virginia have signed deals with drilling companies, including McMehen, Wheeling, Morgantown and the Marshall County school district.

Excerpt: A geohazards supervisor with the Arkansas State Geological Survey, Scott Ausbrooks, told the Associated Press that this Arkansas earthquake swarm could be related to natural gas exploration in the area. The area where the earthquakes have been occurring is part of the Fayetteville Shale–an area of rich organic rock in north-central Arkansas. The Fayetteville Shale area has more than 400 completed gas wells.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110218/tr_ac/7883826_arkansas_earthquake_swarm_could_be_related_to_natural_gas_injection_wells