Pennsylvania, A 'Fraccident' waiting to happen

Just take a look at those 'Resources' ...

From earthjustice.org:

Pennsylvania and Fracking

The Marcellus Shale that runs beneath most of Pennsylvania has been a key target for the oil and gas industry; it currently accounts for nearly 40 percent of U.S. shale gas production.

Between 2011 and 2015, the state approved more than 12,000 permits and almost 6,000 fracking wells, forever altering the landscape of northeastern and southwestern Pennsylvania.

In Pennsylvania, the gas industry has deep ties with the state’s legislators. Between 2007 and 2014, the industry reportedly gave $8 million to elected officials and spent $41 million lobbying the state legislature. A report by the Public Accountability Initiative in 2013 revealed that 45 current or former Pennsylvania state officials have ties to energy industry and fracking regulation, including 28 who ultimately traded their government positions for industry jobs.
[...]

That page also has a well-done Interactive map that shows where and what ‘Fraccidents’ happened, across the once pristine Pennsylvania, when all Fracking-caution was summarily thrown into the wind.


What — Could possibly go Wrong!?

Here’s are few local PA tales, that demonstrate what happens when Special Interest “Accidents” are allowed to happen to good people. I encourage you click this link, to read about more of them:

Centre County, PA

Donal Ludwig, who lives near an NCL gas well, found that his water had been contaminated with high levels of barium, manganese, iron, arsenic and lead. He showers at a nearby campground and hauls his own clean drinking water. When Ludwig tried to shower at his home, he experience headaches and extreme ringing in his ears. When he used the dishwasher, his eyes watered uncontrollably and swelled shut.

Muncy, PA

The subsidiary of energy giant ExxonMobil Corp. halted operations in the county and provide the water well owners with potable water when flammable gas was found in five water wells in Lycoming County and in the nearby Little Muncy Creek.

Although multiple past incidents have prompted the DEP to fine Chesapeake Energy and Cabot Oil & Gas, companies drilling in Pennsylvania counties, they have not assumed responsibility for the pollution. XTO may be another corporation to add to the list.

Branchburg, NJ

In May 2013, a flash fire at a natural gas pipeline compression facility, Transco Pipeline, sent two construction workers to local hospitals and caused minor injuries to 13 other workers. Three emergency fire crews were needed to extinguish the fire.

Susquehanna County, PA

In March 2012, an explosion at a natural gas compressor station in Susquehanna County blew a hole in the roof of the complex holding the engines, shaking homes as far as a half-mile away and drawing emergency responders from nearby counties. The Lathrop station pressurizes and dehydrates natural gas from Marcellus Shale; gas was leaked after the explosion before the valve was shut off.

Wyoming County, PA

In April 2013, 9,000 gallons of fracking fluid spilled from a well site owned by Carrizzo Oil and Gas. According to the Department of Environmental Protection, a faulty hose came loose at the site.

A Wyoming County oil well, operated by the Texas-based Carrizo Oil and Gas, spewed more than a quarter million gallons of highly pressurized fracking wastewater, causing evacuations of nearby homes and buildings in March 2013. Methane gas leaked out of the well, prompting EPA to test the water and air quality in the area.

What — Could possibly go Wrong? Now you know. And that’s not the half of it.

---

And that wind-socking, caution-shedding did have its rather serious “political price tags” attached, unfortunately for PA residents. From wikipedia:

Pennsylvania and fracking

Lobbying and donations

A 2012 press release by MarcellusMoney.org stated that the "natural gas industry and related trade groups have now given nearly $8 million to Pennsylvania state candidates and political committees since 2000.... Top recipients of industry money given between 2000 and April 2012 were Governor Tom Corbett (R) with $1,813,205.59, Senate President Joseph Scarnati (R-25) with $359,145.72, Rep. Dave Reed (R-62) with $137,532.33, House Majority Leader Rep. Mike Turzai (R-28) with $98,600, and Sen. Don White (R-41) with $94,150.[19]

The 2011 Common Cause report, "Deep drilling, deep pockets, in Washington and Pennsylvania," found that "from 2001 through June 2011, the fracking industry gave $20.5 million to current members of Congress and spent $726 million on lobbying."

Two Pennsylvanians, Rep. Tim Murphy, and Sen. Pat Toomey, ranked among the leading recipients in Congress in gas industry donations (10th and 28th respectively). Murphy has received $275,499 and Toomey $160,750. Other PA recipients included Rep. Jason Altmire (D) with $65,365; Rep. Jim Gerlach (R) with $60,800; Rep. Bill Shuster (R) with $59,000; Rep. Charles Dent (R) with $56,500; and Rep. Glenn Thompson (R) with $52,000.

The natural gas industry contributed about $1.6 million to Gov. Corbett’s political campaigns from 2001 to 2011, about $1.1 million of that for his campaign for governor.[20]

Revolving door

The 2013 Public Accountability Initiative report "Fracking and the Revolving Door in Pennsylvania" identified 45 current or former Pennsylvania state officials who have links to the energy industry and gas drilling and fracking regulation, including 28 who have left to take industry jobs. [...]

MARC 1

In January 2012, Central New York Oil & Gas Co., LLC went to court to condemn nearly half the properties along its FERC approved 39-mile natural gas pipeline through northern Pennsylvania, despite the company's assurance to federal regulators that it would minimize using eminent domain. Eminent domain would give the company the right to excavate and lay the 30-inch diameter pipeline on private property. Landowners would not lose their properties and would be compensated. Landowners say the company steamrolled them by refusing to negotiate in good faith on either monetary compensation or the pipeline's route, which cuts through the state's pristine Endless Mountains.

The MARC 1 pipeline is seen as key infrastructure for tapping into the Marcellus Shale, as the high-pressure steel pipeline will connect to major interstate pipelines and the company's own natural gas storage facility in southern New York state. Central New York Oil & Gas hopes to start construction soon and finish by July 2012, but awaits permits from Pennsylvania environmental regulators and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The EPA has expressed concern that the pipeline will cross dozens of pristine waterways.[29]

---

What do the Democratic Candidates say about Fracking? From motherjones:

Hillary Clinton, though, needed more time to outline three conditions in a more nuanced answer on fracking. She's against it "when any locality or any state is against it," "when the release of methane or contamination of water is present," and "unless we can require that anybody who fracks has to tell us exactly what chemicals they are using."

Until those conditions are met, "we've got to regulate everything that is currently underway, and we have to have a system in place that prevents further fracking."
[...]

Bernie Sanders had a simple answer: "No, I do not support fracking."

Fracking is not only a concern to the residents of PA, other states’ citizens do not appreciate the Fracking Industry’s “steam-rolling” ways, either.

I encourage you click this link, to learn more about them — your fellow-residents who are in search of a seriously Greener America. Maybe one day the EPA will actually start protecting us, and not just the Toxics that Be.

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

riverlover's picture

The first Town in NY to ban fracking. There were proposed well sites within a mile of my property. We won.

I had been approached by one company, can't remember which one, that promised revenue to me from side-drilling into my Marcellus Shale. I have a water well. Only 62' down. I know that the shale releases radon, my water tests sky-high, my house air is slightly above Federal standards for radon exposure. That is with an air-to-air heat exchanger that runs 20 min out of each hour.

After the flammable water videos, I did test my tap water with a lighter: it did not flame off. So I had a baseline of not enough gas in my water to light pre-fracking. And then it did not happen here, and then in all of NY State. There are Townships that accept fracking fluid in dump sites in the poorest counties of weatern and central NY. I have seen the tankers driving north on Interstate 81.

Second pipeline proposal bringing natural shale gas from Marcellus shale was nixed by Cuomo today. Earlier in the week, one energy company cancelled pipeline extension through NY to points north.

up
0 users have voted.

Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

You are close to Finger Lakes. I was involved back in the day in the fight to stop fracking within the Finger Lakes National Forest. I'm from PA and worked on oil and has issues here. I'm so glad NY state stopped fracking. It's a horrible idea.

up
0 users have voted.

And one day she told her audience her twenty-something son had been killed in a fracking accident. They don't care about their workers, either, we and the earth are all expendable.

up
0 users have voted.
jamess's picture

picks up where Josh Fox left off.

Dear President Obama’ Screening Thursday Night

[...]
The movie, narrated by three-time Academy Award nominated actor Mark Ruffalo, looks at the oil and gas industry’s impact on society, highlighting contamination crises, stories from victims, and the boom-and-bust economic impacts on communities. Interviews with scientists, economists, health professionals, geologists, and whistleblowers provide the core narrative.

(it also aired tonite on Viceland channel)

up
0 users have voted.
jamess's picture

that must mean the toxic methane is NOT really there, Right?

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHfOu63us20]

Here’s the Facebook page Dear President Obama. It has more content and more clips.

Here's my post over on the other place.

up
0 users have voted.
jamess's picture

Steven D's picture

as I spent most of my life along the front range in Colorado.

Bastards.

up
0 users have voted.

"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

gulfgal98's picture

There have been pushes all over the US to allow fracking in every state. Some states have banned local officials from banning or regulating fracking. We have become way too dependent upon fossil fuels, but they are not a necessity. Clean water is a life necessity. Every human being should have a right to clean water. Thank you for your great work in this area, JamesS.

up
0 users have voted.

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

jamess's picture

that Big Industry can "buy-off" local politicians like that.

And no one goes to jail, no one is hounded out of office,

and the local people suffer the "socialized" consequences,

in terms of health, stress, land values, and the rending of their social fabric.

up
0 users have voted.
Pariah Dog's picture

Have you noticed any slow down in activity in the last couple years?

I'm in Ohio, about forty miles west of the river. People around here were going apeshit starting about 2010. We wuz all gonna git rich! Landman everywhere promising untold wealth. Rents around here went into the stratosphere. $1000 per bedroom per month. Really pricey RVs parked on every place that had a couple acres. Hotels springing up all over. The price of everything doubled. And all because we had all those highly paid frackers and pipeliners all everywhere.

Then, the year before last all the sudden I noticed I wasn't seeing those guys any more. Then I learned one of the big outfits who had paid a million dollars for one of empty buildings had literally folded their tent, laid everyone off, and headed back to Texas with only a few days notice. A month later a couple more did the same thing. That's when I started hearing about the price of oil going into the toidy.

It was the happiest day I've had since I moved here because they were starting to get way too close to me.

up
0 users have voted.

Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons - For thou art crunchy and good with ketchup

Wow. I wish this info could get around Pennsylvania before the primary. As y'all know, HRC pushed for fracking all over the world as SOS. Why anyone believes she is a good choice for President has to require the most amazing cognitively-dissonant double-jointed half-blind acrobatics. It's like people I know are walking in a haze.

up
0 users have voted.
Steven D's picture

Because no one knows. The media doesn't talk about it. We are higher information voters here. We do.

As for those who support her anyway, yes, confirmation bias and blind loyalty cancels out any criticism, because "vast right wing conspiracy" blah blah blah ...

up
0 users have voted.

"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

to adequately desribe her haughty indifference in the N.H. Primary to folks fighting a surprise gas export pipeline through pristine land and conservation areas in NH, MA, NY and PA. she mad a few remarks, one that implied this is a "state's problem" (ignoring or ignorant of FERC) . . . and the well known verbal assault on a young Greenpeace activist. Personally I believe she would be perfectly okay with genocide in the U.S. as well as abroad and I dread thinking what she will do that will harm our nation further than she already has. She has no real resume of any accomplishments for the common good.

I really am serious when I say I won't vote for her: I believe both she and Trump will enact fascism.

up
0 users have voted.

to adequately desribe her haughty indifference in the N.H. Primary to folks fighting a surprise gas export pipeline through pristine land and conservation areas in NH, MA, NY and PA. she mad a few remarks, one that implied this is a "state's problem" (ignoring or ignorant of FERC) . . . and the well known verbal assault on a young Greenpeace activist. Personally I believe she would be perfectly okay with genocide in the U.S. as well as abroad and I dread thinking what she will do that will harm our nation further than she already has. She has no real resume of any accomplishments for the common good.

I really am serious when I say I won't vote for her: I believe both she and Trump will enact fascism.

up
0 users have voted.
Steven D's picture

Cannot tell you how happy I am I live in NY where we managed to keep fracking out. For now, anyway.

up
0 users have voted.

"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

jamess's picture

what they do to local neighborhoods in the name of quick Profits.

NY activists accomplished the unthinkable, blocking this against the will of paid-off reps.

Steven D, I hope you get a chance to watch the film, discussed upthread,
or these excerpts over on Vimeo

It ought to be a crime ...

up
0 users have voted.

up
0 users have voted.
jamess's picture

but I just sent Obama, this email:

------------

Dear President Obama

Mr President, if you really care about your "Legacy", you really need to watch

these pleas from ordinary Americans:

https://vimeo.com/111669362

And check out this Facebook Page: "Dear President Obama"

https://www.facebook.com/dearobamafilm

There a hundred "Mini-Flints" out there due to recklessness of Fracking -- and no one is listening.

Who is looking out for Us -- ordinary Americans who are force to bear the Socialized Costs of this Industry?

PS. The latest Science is showing that if the fugitive methane at a site, is greater than 2.3%,
then it is no longer a "clean" product, in terms of Climate Change impacts.

Most Fracking wells are way beyond that 2.3% leakage rate, and as such,
Most Fracking wells are actually now "dirtier" than Coal.

It's in the film. Watch it.

It's YOUR Legacy.

------------

Email, meet "circular file."

Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

up
0 users have voted.

Wow. I wish this info could get around Pennsylvania before the primary. As y'all know, HRC pushed for fracking all over the world as SOS. Why anyone believes she is a good choice for President has to require the most amazing cognitively-dissonant double-jointed half-blind acrobatics. It's like people I know are walking in a haze.

up
0 users have voted.
jamess's picture

and "More of the Same"

are the unstated impacts
lying in wait for us,
assuming a successful HRC race.

up
0 users have voted.
orlbucfan's picture

I noticed that the area around Hershey (Park) does not have fracking wells. Thank god as it is a beautiful hilly region. They are trying their damndest to get the curse approved down here. Big, ironic roadblock: Floriduh lives by tourism. Ecology is not a bad word here even with the crooked state government. Rec'd. I wouldn't be surprised if PA follows OK and the Bernster wins cos of the extensive environmental damage. Lobby is just another way to say bribe.

up
0 users have voted.

Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.