Energy In Depth digs deep into the substrata of U.S. code, separates fact from fiction in ProPublica’s latest dispatch
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As Dec. 31 comment deadline approaches, NY’ers decide whether to leverage homegrown energy into jobs, revenue, security
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Technological Advancements Continue to Ensure Environmental Safety, Spur Job Creation
Technological breakthroughs in the energy production process continue to advance daily. These advancements – which are responsible for delivering affordable, clean-burning energy to American families, small businesses and manufacturers – help ensure that energy exploration is properly balanced with, and even used to help enhance, the imperative of keeping our air, land and water safe. At the same time, thanks in large part to these new developments, good-paying jobs are being created in the natural gas production industry from shale plays in Pennsylvania all way down to Arkansas, as well as a host of other regions throughout the country.
In a weekend story entitled “Proposed Wysox recycling plant for gas industry would not discharge into sewer system”, the Towanda (PA) Daily Review reports this:
Wysox Township is the preferred location for a plant that Eureka Resources LLC would construct to recycle waste water from hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus Shale, one of the owners of Eureka Resources said this week.
The plant, which would be located at the site of the Agway store on Sullivan Street in Wysox Township, would remove the salt, chemicals and other components from the waste water, said Daniel Ertel, one of the owners of Eureka Resources LLC.
All of the treated water would then be returned to gas well sites where it would be re-used in gas drilling operations, including hydraulic fracturing, he said.
The plant would not discharge any water or waste products into streams, rivers or sewer systems, he said.
“It will be a 100 percent recycling facility,” he said.
And yesterday, the Associated Press reports this under the headline “Ark. city lands $15 million manufacturing plant”:
A manufacturer specializing in technology to help increase oil and gas production plans to build a $15 million plant in Van Buren, employing about 50 workers by the summer.
Oxane Materials Inc. says it plans to expand the plant through 2014, with an expected total investment of $32 million and additional employment of up to 300 workers.
While Pennsylvania, Texas, Wyoming, North Dakota, Louisiana and Arkansas – just to name a few – continue to bolster job and revenue growth through energy production, some states are sitting on their hands. Under New York lies a considerable portion of the Marcellus shale. However, some state policymakers remain committed to adding layers of bureaucratic red tape around the shale gas production process in the state. Some even want an outright ban on this job-creating production.
Thankfully though, there is still time for New Yorkers to send their state leaders the message that it is now time to move forward with responsible, heavily-regulated, 21st century shale production in the Empire State. And as illustrated above, today’s energy production technologies safeguard and protect the environment and water resources. Struggling families and the thousands out of work residents need this economic activity now more than ever.
Gas exploration could bolster New York’s economy
By Brad Gill
December 21, 2009, 9:48 AM
- “The decision to leverage our state’s homegrown energy resources into jobs, revenue and opportunity during this time of economic uncertainty will be made by the citizens”
Op-ed contributor Larry Beahan isn’t the first anti-energy activist to employ dark imagery and breathless hyperbole to scare the public into thinking the development of clean-burning natural gas is dangerous; but rarely has a submission been as grossly inaccurate as the one attributed to him on this page last month.
It’s important to understand first that natural gas exploration is not a phenomenon new to our state. The first commercial gas well in the world was developed just 50 miles south of Buffalo nearly 190 years ago, and New York today is home to more than 14,000 producing wells, each of them tightly regulated by the state.
What’s different with the Marcellus Shale? For starters, it’s massive, by some estimates, holding as much as 516 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. And as our friends from Pennsylvania have shown us, it’s an economic game-changer as well.
Barely two years into developing its portion of the Marcellus, Pennsylvania saw those efforts generate 29,000 jobs and $240 million in state and local tax revenue in 2008 alone.
How did our neighbors fare in 2009? According to one study, gas exploration helped Pennsylvania create an additional 48,000 jobs and $3.8 billion in local economic development — still with a month of counting to go. Keep in mind that more than 900,000 people in New York are out of work, with jobs here currently being lost statewide at a clip of 500 a day.
But what of Beahan’s contention that the process for producing this gas is unsafe — a “satanic” ritual involving an “unholy brew” of “unknown chemicals,” as he puts it?
Well, 99.5 percent of that “unholy brew” is water and sand, and the trace additives that remain are posted online by the Department of Environmental Conservation for all to see. One of the most significant of those additives (by percentage) is “guar gum.” You can find that in peanut butter.
Other errors put forth by Beahan seek to intentionally mislead: Diesel fuel, contrary to his assertion, is not used in the exploration process (except in the trucks); the fish kill he references in West Virginia was caused by coal mine discharges, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, not drilling water; and the process of hydraulic fracturing has not forced a single person in Bradford, Pa., to leave his home.
Ultimately, the decision to leverage our state’s homegrown energy resources into jobs, revenue and opportunity during this time of economic uncertainty will be made by the citizens, not Beahan. Readers who’d like to support new exploration can send e-mails to dmnsgeis@gw.dec.state.ny.us. But time is running out.
Brad Gill is executive director of the Independent Oil & Gas Association of New York and a member of the coalition EnergyInDepth.org.
NOTE: Click HERE to view this column on-line and HERE to view Energy In Depth’s NY on-line petition.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Walter Hang’s Statistics
Ithaca activist scores lots of coverage over claim of “270 oil and gas spills in New York” – but what do the data ACTUALLY say?
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Lies, Damned Lies, and Walter Hang’s Statistics
WASHINGTON – This morning, Bruce Vincent, chairman of the Independent Petroleum Association of American (IPAA) and president of Houston-based Swift Energy (SFY), and Jim Marston, director of state climate initiatives at the Environmental Defense Fund, discussed the 60-old critical energy production technique known as hydraulic fracturing, which is key to unlocking clean-burning, tightly-packed shale gas miles below the ground on CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box.’ To view this segment on-line, click HERE.
Key excerpts from the segment:
IPAA’s Bruce Vincent
- “Clearly, the natural gas industry can play a significant role as we move towards a better environment for our grandchildren. It can also play a role today in job creation. It can also play a role in energy security for the country.
- Many of these methods, hydraulic fracturing as an example that’s under attack today, have actually been used by the industry for a long, long time. That particular technology has been used for 60 years, and over that period of time there’s not a known case where it’s contaminated fresh water aquifers, yet there continues to be a mischaracterizations that that may have happened.”
- “[Hydraulic fracturing] has been the key technology in unlocking these shale gas resources that many people have heard about. Today, we have a natural gas resource base in America over a 100 years in length. We’re the Saudi Arabia of natural gas in the world. It’s abundant, it’s affordable, it’s reliable, and it’s American.”
- “Because of the [natural gas production] activity there, they create a lot of jobs and economic well-being in those areas.”
On federal regulations:
- “What federal regulation would do would just lay additional burden of regulation that would both cost time and both cost money, but also provide an avenue where other groups, special interest groups, could throw up roadblocks. And if it was important to do, we’d support it. But the states have regulated these efforts for decades, and they have regulated them effectively.”
EDF’s Jim Marston
- “Well I agree with Bruce that some of problems we are seeing…are not related to fracking. … Fracking per se, is not something that we have to fear.”
On federal regulations:
- “We’re hoping that states will step up and really fulfill their responsibility. If so, we may not need federal regulations.”
House Democrats to EPA: Frac Study Should Be Based on Science, Not Hyperbole
14 Days After Praising America’s Shale Gas as a “BIG Source of New Electrical Generation,” U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) Seeks Out Platform from Which to Smear It
REP. MARKEY, TWO WEEKS AGO …
Rep. Ed Markey Praising Development of Marcellus Shale
Carter Wood
NAM’s ShopFloor.org
December 2, 2009
Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, and a sponsor of the House-passed cap-and-trade legislation, participated in a good public discussion yesterday at the Capitol sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute and Newsweek magazine.
Given the astonishing expansion of natural gas in the United States thanks to hydrofracturing and directional drilling making shale deposits accessible, it was encouraging to hear Chairman Markey’s comments in support of its development.
Rep. Ed Markey: “Ninety percent of all new electrical capacity in America since 1990 has been natural gas, and it’s going to continue on that way as a base load with the new mandates for renewable electricity in the states having a higher percentage increasingly coming from that source. But natural gas is going to do very well in the future, and the discoveries from the Marcellus Shale all the way through Barnett, that is all the way from New York down to Texas, are going to be big source of new electrical generation.”
NOTE: Click HERE to listen to an audio file of Congressman Markey’s comments.
REP. MARKEY, TODAY …
Markey calls for Exxon/XTO merger hearing
Tom Fowler
Houston Chronicle
December 15, 2009
Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee is calling for a special hearing into the planned merger between Exxon Mobil and XTO Energy:
“This proposed merger also raises a number of issues with respect to the future direction of the U.S. domestic oil and gas industry, competition within the industry, and the potential environmental impact of increased unconventional natural gas development.”
No doubt issues like environmental concerns over hydraulic fracturing are part of the reason.
But there’s also the issue of natural gas as a power plant fuel which, as a helpful reader at EnergyInDepth.org pointed out, Markey believes is a key fact of life moving forward. Quoting Markey from a Newsweek-sponsored event earlier this month:
“Ninety percent of all new electrical capacity in America since 1990 has been natural gas, and it’s going to continue on that way as a base load with the new mandates for renewable electricity in the states having a higher percentage increasingly coming from that source. But natural gas is going to do very well in the future, and the discoveries from the Marcellus Shale all the way through Barnett, that is all the way from New York down to Texas, are going to be big source of new electrical generation.”
Members of Congress: Guidlines for conducting an accurate study on hydraulic fracturing
Hydraulic Fracturing an “Amazing Technology,” Responsible for Unlocking Job-Creating American Energy
This morning, on CNBC’s Squawk Box, six-term Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, a senior member of the powerful House Ways & Means Committee and the top Republican on the Budget Committee, had plenty to say about the extraordinary contribution that technologies such as hydraulic fracturing continue to make toward America’s energy future:
“[Hydraulic fracturing] is amazing technology. And it has opened up, you know, more than 100 years worth of natural gas reserves in this country.
“I think that controversy [about fracturing] is very overblown. And I think there are right kinds of safeguards you can put on fracturing so that it is safe and secure. It is way below the water tables.”
Congressman Ryan is widely-considered a whiz on taxes, entitlement programs and trade issues — but he also understands full-well how safe, heavily-regulated and critical hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling technologies are to our nation’s long-term energy security.
And while unemployment remains at the previously unthinkable level of 10 percent, responsible domestic shale gas production continues to generate economic activity and growth and the creation of tens of thousands of good-paying jobs throughout the country.
Don Briggs, president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association (LOGA), writes this in a Daily Advertiser column entitled “Haynesville Shale: the bright spot in 2009” today:
“In 2008, investment in the Haynesville Shale resulted in the direct creation of more than 430 high-paying jobs. In addition, state and local tax revenues also skyrocketed by at least $153 million. We can most certainly expect an exponentially larger number of jobs created, higher tax revenues, and increased royalty payments in the future.”
“Don’t squander energy opportunity” is the title of Bernard Weinstein’s Houston Chronicle Sunday column. Weinstein, an Southern Methodist University businesses school director, writes this in his column focused on hydraulic fracturing, which also appeared in The News-Star:
“In recent months, concerns about the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing have been raised both in the Barnett Shale and the newer gas plays in Louisiana and the Northeast. In particular, some environmental groups are claiming that the chemicals used in fracturing are contaminating local water supplies. In fact, New York State has imposed a moratorium on gas drilling anywhere in the New York City watershed.
“Hydraulic fracturing has been used in nearly 1 million wells across the United States. Nonetheless, careful studies by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Ground Water Protection Council haven’t revealed a single case of drinking water contamination from shale gas drilling. That’s because the fracturing occurs far below the location of drinking water, and the gas wells are encased in steel and concrete to ensure isolation from ground water.
“Huge economic and national security benefits that can be realized by fully developing our domestic natural gas resources. Let’s not squander this unique opportunity.”
Sen. Inhofe: “The Obama Administration has it right: there are no documented cases of ground water contamination from hydraulic fracturing”
Despite the long and abundantly clear record of environmental safety that hydraulic fracturing has maintained for more than a half-century, some who oppose the responsible development of traditional, job-creating American energy forms – including clean-burning natural gas – continue to wage all-out war on the technology. That battle continued in earnest today up on Capitol Hill.
These agenda-driven attacks persist even though independent studies have determined that fracking has never contaminated groundwater. Heck, even Carol Browner – energy czar to President Obama and former EPA chief under President Clinton – has come to the same conclusion on fracturing’s environmental safety.
Today, though, a major blow was delivered to those who are working tirelessly to stop responsible shale gas development here at home, as well as the tens of thousands of good-paying jobs and billions in economic activity that this production is generating.
At a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing earlier today, U.S. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) asked senior EPA and USGS officials a pretty simple question:
“Do any one of you know of one case of ground water contamination that has resulted from hydraulic fracturing?”
Crickets. Actually, these folks responded eventually. And what they said may (not) shock you:
Peter Silva (EPA Water Chief): Not that I’m aware of, no.
Sen. Inhofe: Ms. Giles?
Cynthia Giles (EPA Compliance Administrator): I understand there’s some anecdotal evidence, but I don’t know that it’s been firmly established.
Sen. Inhofe: So the answer is no, you don’t know of it.
Cynthia Giles nods.
Sen. Inhofe: Alright, Mr. Larsen?
Matthew Larsen (Assoc. Director for Water, EPA): I’ll have to respond in writing, I don’t, I’m not aware of all of our studies on that topic.
Click HERE to view online footage of this exchange.
Also, Sen. Inhofe says this in a statement that was released earlier today following the hearing:
“The Obama Administration has it right: there are no documented cases of ground water contamination from hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing is a safe production technique that is thoroughly regulated by the states. We have a 60 year history to prove it.
“With the unemployment rate at 10 percent, we need to put people back to work. Imposing more bureaucracy and regulation will destroy jobs and stifle opportunities for those looking to find a job. The oil and gas industry employs 6 million people in the U.S. I want to see that number go up, not down.”
Pitt. Post-Gazette Tells the Marcellus Shale Story, Highlights Huge “Economic Impact”
Yesterday’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – not a traditional fan of safe, responsible, heavily-regulated natural gas production – sheds light on the transformational natural gas production in the state’s Marcellus shale play. Here are few key excerpts from Elwin Green’s “Natural gas locked in the Marcellus Shale has companies rushing to cash in on possibilities” article:
THE FIND
In December 2007, Fort Worth, Texas, natural gas giant Range Resources released quarterly operating results documenting production from the first modern natural gas wells drilled in the Marcellus, thus giving Wall Street its first glimpse of the formation’s profit potential
The next month, an announcement by Penn State University geoscience professor Terry Engelder and City University of New York, Fredonia, geology professor Gary Lash made that potential appear much greater. In 2002, the U.S. Geological Survey had estimated the shale contained some 1.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The professors estimated it contained between 168 trillion and 516 trillion cubic feet, between 80 and 250 times the government estimate.
ECONOMIC BENEFITS FOR DECADES TO COME
Talk to anyone in the industry about the Marcellus Shale and the conversation is likely to turn to its potential economic impact — not just the money that a company hopes to make, but the jobs that could be created and the tax revenues that could be generated.
According to a report released in July by Penn State’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, the Marcellus Shale helped create more than 29,000 new jobs in Pennsylvania in 2008. Of those, about 14,000 were directly related to Marcellus development. The remainder were created by what the study calls “indirect and induced impacts,” such as a restaurant near a drilling site hiring more staff because it is serving a larger lunchtime crowd.
The study predicts more than a decade of dramatic growth, with more than 48,000 new jobs this year, then another 98,000 in 2010.
By 2020, the study says, Marcellus development could add $13.5 billion to the state’s economy and create more than 176,000 new jobs in a single year.
HYDRAULIC FRACTURING, NEW TECHNOLOGIES MAKING PRODUCTION SAFE, POSSIBLE
The well made use of a technology that had long been employed in other regions — hydrofracking. As the name suggests, hydrofracking induces fractures in the shale by injecting it with water. This creates new spaces for the gas to move into, thus making more gas accessible.
The bigger breakthrough came the following year. Historically, drilling a natural gas well meant plunging a well bore straight down into the earth, with the hope of finding a pocket of gas lodged in a layer of rock. In 2005, Range drilled a well that went straight down for a distance, then turned sideways, extending its reach horizontally.
In shale formations, natural gas tends to reside in vertical fractures in the rock, so striking gas with a vertical well was literally a hit-or-miss proposition. With horizontal drilling joined to hydrofracking, Range saw a dramatic increase in production.
Neither horizontal drilling nor hydrofracking were new, either. In fact, Mr. Walker designed the first hydrofracking well in 1982. Producers used both horizontal drilling and fracking to extract gas from the Barnett Shale, a formation in the Fort Worth, Texas, area.
Click HERE to view the Post-Gazette’s web video, which shows a Range Resources natural gas site and interviews the company’s Marcellus Shale division vice president, Ray Walker.
Others are speaking out, too, about the safety and soundness of responsible, 21st century shale gas development in the United States.
In today’s Glenwood Springs (CO) Post Independent, under the headline “Expert says 95 percent of oil, gas wells are fractured,” Jennifer Miskimins, associate professor of the Petroleum Engineering Department at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden says this about fracking:
Before hydraulic fracturing, or “frac’ing” was invented in the 1940s, Miskimins said, “Most of these reservoirs [meaning formations like those in Garfield County] we never dreamed we’d be producing from.”
“There’s nothing in frac’ing fluids that’s any more dangerous than the hydrocarbons we’re producing,” she declared, adding that the chemicals added to the fluids are in “very small volumes” compared to the gas produced.
Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) write this in a jointly-penned Politico column today entitled “The energy answer? Natural gas”:
America is experiencing a natural gas revolution. Prices are 33 percent lower than they were last year, and the industry is producing significantly more gas, thanks to technology that has uncovered enormous new supplies of natural gas.
The United States has three times the amount of natural gas it thought it had in 1966 — and 40 percent more than just a few years ago. In fact, more than 2,000 trillion cubic feet of natural gas is estimated to be available; at present consumption levels, that’s enough to heat all U.S. households for the next 519 years. In northwest Louisiana alone, the Haynesville Shale reserve has 251 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas, almost 11 times the amount consumed by Americans last year.
And on Saturday, the Calgary Herald’s Lisa Schmidt reports this about the technological breakthroughs U.S. shale gas development is having under the headline “Shale Storm: How an energy revolution in the United States is battering natural gas prices and squeezing Albertans”:
This “shale gale,” as renowned oilpatch author Daniel Yergin has termed it, is relentlessly moving across North America, driven by technology that has unlocked major stores of the fuel.
Massive stores of shale gas, once beyond the reach of engineers, are now being successfully squeezed out from under Texas and other U.S. states.
LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP (to Conclusions)
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING: Safe, Well-Regulated Hydraulic Fracturing an Economic “Game-Changer”
Colorado’s Garfield Becomes Ninth County to Oppose Federal Fracing Legislation
Indep Nat’l Gas Expert: “People aren’t aware of how safe and common gas drilling is”
William Kapell, a hydrologist with the US Geological Survey (USGS), addressed a League of Women Voters crowd last night on a wide range of issues surrounding safe, heavily-regulated natural gas production in the Marcellus shale. Today’s Ithaca Journal, under the headline “Expert: Drilling catastrophe unlikely with gas,” reports this:
Kapell said he’s spent 30 years working with black shale gas in upstate New York. He characterized some risks — of drilling triggering seismic activity, or a gas company fracking all the way to the surface — as small.
Kappel noted that oil and gas drilling have been going on in New York state since 1849.
Accidents with those wells are rare and people aren’t aware of how safe and common gas drilling is, because only the accidents “make it in the news,” he said.
Kappel said the contamination in Dimock came from improper well casing in a shallow gas layer, not from fracking in the Marcellus Shale.
George Will highlights the recent technological breakthroughs in shale gas development (ie hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling) in a recent Washington Post column, citing a top State Department energy advisor to President Jimmy Carter. In his column “Awash in fossil fuels,” Will writes:
Edward L. Morse, an energy official in Carter’s State Department, writes in Foreign Affairs that the world’s deep-water oil and gas reserves are significantly larger than was thought a decade ago, and high prices have spurred development of technologies … for extracting them.
Morse says new technologies are also speeding development of natural gas trapped in U.S. shale rock. The Marcellus Shale, which stretches from West Virginia through Pennsylvania and into New York, “may contain as much natural gas as the North Field in Qatar, the largest field ever discovered.”
Rattie says that known U.S. reserves of natural gas, which are sure to become larger, exceed 100 years of supply at the current rate of consumption.
Shale Gas: Creating Jobs, Economic Activity, Prosperity and Affordable Energy in a Town Near You
Dense, tight rock formations thousands of feet below the ground holding decades of clean-burning natural gas reserves are now being unlocked. How? With 21st century horizontal drilling technologies – coupled with hydraulic fracturing, a 60-year old technique – enormous amounts of homegrown, domestic energy previously out of reach are now being realized. And so are the economic benefits and jobs associated with this safe, responsible and well-regulated production.
With unemployment at a 26-year high, and expected to continue to climb for some time, natural gas production continues to serve as an economic and job creation engine.
Here’s a quick sampling of a few recent headlines:
Shreveport Times: “Haynesville Shale has protected area from recession. Northwest Louisiana residents repeatedly have heard over the past year or so how fortunate this region is to have the Haynesville Shale and its financial fortunes act as somewhat of a buffer against the national recession. Energy specialist Loren C. Scott echoed that Friday during a luncheon speech before 560 attendees of the second annual Haynesville Shale Expo inside the Shreveport Convention Center. The first to release a comprehensive evaluation of the oil and gas industry’s impact on the region, Scott put the shale into perspective, first through a detailed look at the national economic picture. “This has been a stinker,” he said of the recession that started in January 2008. “But there’s every indication we are out of it now, and we’re starting to grow again.” … For example, in 2008, when the shale was just a “baby,” more than $4.5 billion in new revenue was generated … Of that, about $3.1 billion was in lease payments. Tax receipts amounted to $153.3 million and more than 32,000 jobs were created.”
Arkansas News: “Officials to commemorate five years of drilling in Fayetteville Shale play … “’We’ve known there was natural gas in these shales for decades,’ said Ed Ratchford, senior petroleum geologist and fossil-fuel supervisor for the Arkansas Geological Survey. But tapping the reserves was not economically feasible until service companies like Halliburton and Schlumberger developed hydraulic fracturing technology to pull gas from “unconventional” wells, such as Fayetteville Shale, Ratchford said. … A well near Jerusalem produced the first gas for an energy boom that a 2008 University of Arkansas study estimated will generate $19.9 billion and more than 11,000 jobs for the Arkansas economy through 2012. … SWN Sand Co. is expected to produce more than 2 billion pounds of sand per year for Southwestern Energy’s drilling operations. SWN Sand plans to hire about 30 workers initially and up to 45 at full capacity.”
Shreveport Times: “Haynesville Shale activity creates job opportunities … There are a lot of options when it comes to job opportunities in the oil and natural gas industry. … The Haynesville Shale natural gas deposit has kept companies in northwest Louisiana. And they all need qualified employees. This area has become a haven for oil and natural gas professionals from throughout the country, said Angie White, vice president of North Louisiana Economic Partnership. “We have more oil and gas people in the area from all over because they have been laid off.” … Local colleges have announced several new programs in the oil and natural gas field. Among them is Bossier Parish Community College in Bossier City, which has started a petroleum technology program. … And Diesel Driving Academy is yet another option for job seekers. Its program trains people to obtain a commercial driver’s license. Many of its new graduates can earn up to $40,000 a year plus benefits.”
Unable to move the needle with conventional attacks, ProPublica digs deep for assault on Marcellus aimed explicitly at scaring the public
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Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States: Question DeGette support of FRAC Act
Flush with falsehoods and hyperbole, anti-energy activists promise to “overwhelm the DEC” at NY Marcellus hearings this week
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Safe, Responsible, Well-Regulated Hydraulic Fracturing Highlighted in Today’s Washington Post
API: Hydraulic fracturing operations- well construction and integrity guidelines
IOGCC: A chronology of hydraulic fracturing and the Safe Drinking Water Act
Report: Marcellus Shale ‘creating thousands of jobs and turning farmers into millionaires’
NY Times – America’s “paper of record” – re-writes history of hydraulic fracturing, uses schoolyard attacks to defend endorsement of DeGette’s FRAC Act
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NY Times – America’s “paper of record” – re-writes history of hydraulic fracturing, uses schoolyard attacks to defend endorsement of DeGette’s FRAC Act
The New York Times prides itself as the paper of record in the United States, an outlet entrusted with setting the news and opinion agenda for the nation thanks to its uncommonly high standards of accuracy and fairness. But if yesterday’s editorial offering on hydraulic fracturing is any indication, the paper’s definition of “all the news that’s fit to print” has apparently loosened up a bit over the years — so as to render itself completely unrecognizable relative to its former self.
That’s the only conclusion one can reach in reading the paper’s editorial on Tuesday. One-part revisionist history, one-part direct advocacy on behalf of the FRAC Act, the piece adopts a familiar tactic among opponents of responsible energy development: Break off legitimate debate, scurry off to the closest, safest corner, and commence launch of ad hominem attacks upon those with whom you disagree. This section is typical of the piece:
Among the many dubious provisions in the 2005 energy bill was one dubbed the Halliburton loophole, which was inserted at the behest of — you guessed it — then-Vice President Dick Cheney … It stripped the Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to regulate … hydraulic fracturing.
Quite a story to tell: Unfortunately, not a single bit of it is true. Hydraulic fracturing has never been regulated nationally by EPA – not today, not before the bipartisan 2005 energy bill passed (supported by then-Sen. Barack Obama), not at any point during the 35-year run of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).
As for the former vice president? He didn’t have a damn thing to do with Congress’s decision to clarify the intent of SDWA as it related to fracturing; that honor goes to a fella named David Ludder, whose mid-1990s lawsuit on hydraulic fracturing created the need for Congress to provide one final stroke of guidance on what SDWA was written to do, and what it was not.
Thankfully, fracturing continues to be aggressively regulated by the states through their respective groundwater protection programs – and has been since the technology was first invented. How can something earn an exemption from a law that never regulated it in the first place? That’s what EID member Dennis Lathem of the Coalbed Methane Association of Alabama wants to know in a letter he submitted to the Times — about 12 seconds after the editorial was posted on the website:
Hydraulic fracturing has NEVER been regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act … This was never the intent of Congress and it is NOT the way EPA, state oil and gas and environmental regulators around the country believe the SDWA should be implemented.
Need more proof that EPA has never had the ability, responsibility, or (frankly) the authority to unilaterally step in and claim regulatory authority over fracturing from the states? Don’t take Dennis’s word for it – just ask former EPA administrator (and current Obama energy czar) Carol Browner. Here’s her take on the issue:
EPA does not regulate – and does not believe it is legally required to regulate – the hydraulic fracturing of methane production wells … Moreover, given the horizontal and vertical distance between the drinking water well and the closest methane gas production wells, the possibility of contamination or endangerment of [drinking water] in the area is extremely remote.
Hydraulic fracturing is a popular topic of conversation these days in New York; no fewer than 25 newspapers across the state have run articles on the Marcellus Shale, and at least 15 of them, by our count, have rendered their own editorial opinions, suggestions or observations.
But would you believe it if we told you that the venerable New York Times, with a circulation of 928,000 in print and millions more online, is the only one to suggest that hydraulic fracturing was previously regulated by EPA? The only one to parrot a claim not even ProPublica stands four-square behind any longer? The only one to uncritically accept as fact that which was previously only taken seriously by fringe groups such as OGAP and NRDC?
The old grey lady – apparently, she ain’t what she used to be. And in 150 words or less, that’s precisely the message that Energy In Depth attempted to convey in a letter to the editor submitted yesterday:
To read the Times’ editorial on hydraulic fracturing is to better understand how a 60-year record of safety can be completely dismissed with the utterance of a single word: Halliburton. Unfortunately, faced with a choice between adding substance to the debate and providing a platform for schoolyard insults, the Times took the easy way out.
Whether the Times decides to run any of these responses, it’s too early to tell for sure. Naturally, we’ve been told our submissions will be scrupulously read and forthrightly considered; less clear is whether they’ll actually be understood. If previous signed opinion pieces written by the Times’ environmental editorial writer are any indication, we shouldn’t hold our breath. Of course, that doesn’t mean we should hold our fire either.
Additional resources available at Energy In Depth:
- Fact Sheet: HF Opponents Say the Darndest Things
- Press Release: Duplicative hydraulic fracturing rules could imperil U.S. economy
- Wyoming Memo: Mind the O-Gap
- GWPC Study: State Oil and Natural Gas Regulations Designed to Protect Water Resources
- Graphic: How Far Down Do We Frac?
- Graphic: What’s In Frac Fluids?
- EPA Study: Study to Evaluate the Impacts to USDWs by Hydraulic Fracturing of Coalbed Methane Reservoirs
- Browner Memo: Letter of Support for Hydraulic Fracturing from Carol Browner, Fmr. EPA Administrator
ICYMI: Support for Hydraulic Fracturing, America’s Shale Gas Not a Partisan Affair
Nothing Overstated About the Jobs Being Created Thanks to Hydraulic Fracturing
Economist calls Marcellus Shale development “a game changer”, a “huge economic injection”, and “a huge shot in the arm”
Today, under the headline “Stimulus jobs overstated by thousands,” the Associated Press reported that “An early progress report on President Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan overstates by thousands the number of jobs created or saved through the stimulus program.”
While common errors and simple mistakes may be responsible for what is an honest miscalculation, the fact remains that homegrown energy production continues to create good-paying jobs at breakneck pace, especially throughout the Northeast where clean-burning natural gas trapped in dense rock thousands of feet below the ground in the Marcellus Shale region is now being accessed through hydraulic fracturing.
Below is just a sampling of local and regional news articles from this week, highlighting the uptick in job creation and economic activity throughout the region that is directly tied to natural gas development made possible by hydraulic fracturing:
- Wilkes Barre Times-Leader: “The Marcellus Shale gas play will be “a game changer” for Northeastern Pennsylvania, bringing a “huge economic injection” and making life here very different a decade from now, an economist said Wednesday. … the region will get “a huge shot in the arm” from natural gas drilling. “The economic forecast is very bright.” Gas drilling has boomed in the Northern Tier of Pennsylvania since horizontal drilling technologies using pressurized liquids have made it financially feasible for companies to drill into the Marcellus Shale, a layer of gas-laden rock that runs about a mile underground from New York into Virginia.”
- Buffalo News: “Gary Marchiore, a vice president at Constellation Energy in Amherst, thinks the natural gas-drilling potential of the Marcellus Shale region in northwestern Pennsylvania and the Southern Tier could be an economic boost for the Buffalo Niagara region. … “We have ample resources in this country. The Marcellus Shale is a wonderful example,” [Congressman Chris] Lee said. … Marchiore sees the Marcellus Shale as a great economic opportunity for the Buffalo Niagara region, even if the wells themselves will be in the Southern Tier and northwestern Pennsylvania. Local companies could support the drilling activity, including companies like National Fuel Gas Co., which has extensive drilling plans for the region and plans to expand its pipeline network there, as well. “This is an economic growth engine and proven technology,” Marchiore said.
- Elmira Star-Gazette: “Workers looking to cash in on the Marcellus Shale are lining up. More than 200 of them, resumes in hand Monday, waited in the parking lot of the Riverstone Inn in Bradford County, where Chesapeake Energy recruited workers as it intensifies natural gas production in northern Susquehanna County. Inside, hundreds more circulated, shoulder to shoulder, waiting to shake hands and pitch their credentials to representatives from Chesapeake and various contractors. Engineers, plumbers, machinists, laborers, truck drivers and a legion of other job seekers, 99.9 percent of them men, came from throughout the Twin Tiers, including Broome and Tioga Counties. … “This is kind of in my field,” said Eric Williamson, 46, an unemployed industrial plumber from Kunkletown, Pa., who was decked out in a tailored suit and tie. … The jobs are mostly blue collar. … Since the beginning of the year, Chesapeake‘s labor force in Pennsylvania has increased from 200 to 700, with a similar growth trend expected through 2011, company officials. … Since 2007, it rapidly has gained popularity among energy producers as they honed technology to effectively harness it. That includes horizontal drilling and a controversial process called hydraulic fracturing, which uses a pressurized chemical solution to fracture bedrock to stimulate gas flow.”
- Towanda Daily Review: “So many people attended Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s job fair Monday at the RiverStone Inn in Wysox Township that the line of people waiting to enter the fair extended out the door of the inn, through its parking lot, and halfway into the parking lot of the Dandy Mini Mart next door. “Well over 600 people” attended the job fair, which was held from 1-5 p.m., said Brian Grove, director of corporate development for Chesapeake. “We were really excited about it (the turnout),” Grove said.” … Chesapeake currently has more than 700 employees in Pennsylvania, Grove said.”
However, without the 60-year old environmentally-proven technique known as fracking – which is heavily regulated at the state level – this job creation, economic growth and increase in stable and affordable energy supplies would not be possible. Some in Congress are working hard to undercut this progress, though. Send Congress the message that responsible American energy production must remain a top national priority and that states – who have effectively regulated fracking for 60 years – are best suited and equipped to continue to ensure this process is executed safely and responsibly.
Safe, Responsible Homegrown Energy Production Positively Impacting Livelihoods
Domestic energy production is helping to raise the standard of living for families, small businesses and retirees living on fixed-incomes. The linchpin to this production of job-creating homegrown energy, and the associated positive economic activity, is hydraulic fracturing. Without this environmentally proven 60-year old technique, much of our nation’s resources would remain out of reach.
Major news outlets over the weekend, especially in region’s where an uptick in natural gas production is occurring, are taking notice, too.
In an A-1, above-the-fold Philadelphia Inquirer article yesterday under the headline “Pa. Tapped, Drillers Not”, Andrew Maykuth takes a close look at the financial benefits many struggling families and businesses are now realizing because of energy production in the Marcellus Shale region. Maykuth tells a compelling story about the Barto family of Hughesville, Pennsylvania:
Barto’s wife, Louise, came to the door in a wheelchair. She was disabled 23 years ago in an automobile crash, and Barto quit his county job to care for her. Barto’s health is not so good, either. He lost a finger to a log splitter, got a knee replacement a few years ago, and had a kidney transplant in 1995 that freed him from dialysis.
“The wife and I, we’ve been without for quite a long time,” Barto said last week as he stood by a pen of watchful, mud-caked heifers.
Barto’s luck may have turned. In April, two wells drilled on his farm began producing natural gas, and the royalties started arriving in the summer. He and his neighbors became the latest Pennsylvanians to strike gold in a mile-deep layer of black rock called the Marcellus Shale.
The full scale of the Marcellus gas boom is still coming into focus, but Barto likes what he has seen so far.
In July, four days before Barto’s 67th birthday, he received the first check from Chief Oil & Gas L.L.C., the Dallas company that last year drilled the wells on this hardscrabble farm, 21 miles east of Williamsport.
Barto’s monthly royalty checks now come in at about $7,000. It’s just the beginning. He and 14 neighbors get royalty checks from the sale of the gas, but the wells capture only a fraction of the gas trapped in the rock. Chief plans to drill many more wells on Barto’s land and surrounding properties.
Barto is trying to keep his newfound bounty in perspective. With the compensation he got when Chief drilled on his land, he splurged on a $42,000 McCormick tractor – the first new tractor of his life – and he built a new metal barn.
Maykuth also highlights the critical energy production techniques required to produce the shale gas deep in the otherwise unreachable Marcellus formation:
Though the Marcellus was long known to contain gas, its potential became clear only recently as developers perfected a horizontal drilling technique that allows them to follow the contours of the shale bed. Since horizontal drilling began four years ago in southwestern Pennsylvania, geologists have raised their estimates of the recoverable reserves. By some estimates, the 363 trillion cubic feet of gas could supply the entire country for 15 years at current consumption rates.
Academics, energy experts and editorial boards are weighing in, too, on the critical nature hydraulic fracturing plays in our energy security. In today’s Oklahoman, David Deming – a geologist and associate professor at the University of Oklahoma – writes this in a column entitled “Plenty of oil out there”:
The Williston Basin in Montana and North Dakota contains nearly 4 billion barrels of oil that has yet to be discovered and produced. Oil has been produced from the Williston Basin since the 1920s. But the introduction of horizontal drilling and hydrofracturing have made it possible to exploit resources heretofore unreachable. Among the leaders in using the new technologies is Oklahoma’s own Continental Resources.
New York State Petroleum Council’s executive director, Mike Doyle, appears in Sunday’s New York Times. Doyle writes this:
We can safely develop New York’s extensive clean-burning natural gas supplies while also providing jobs, growth and substantial revenues to the state.
Studies of hydraulic fracturing, a 60-year-old technology crucial to natural gas development and already widely used in New York, strongly suggest that the technology is safe despite recent concerns.
And the Grand Junction Sentinel writes this in an editorial from the weekend:
The Environmental Protection Agency has twice concluded that fracking is not dangerous — once during the Clinton administration and most recently in 2004.
The EPA is also conducting tests on water wells in central Wyoming found to be tainted with a number of chemicals. The wells are in a natural gas field, but despite the claims of some environmentalists, the EPA is a long way from concluding that fracking was the source of the contamination. The EPA is conducting more tests to determine how much contamination there is, whether it poses a health hazard and where it came from.
Over the weekend, regional news outlets highlighted the host of positive economic benefits associated with the environmentally-sound, well-regulated energy production technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
In an in-depth look at fracking – a process that has been around for more than 60 years – South Dakota’s KFYR-TV, under the headline “Energy Insider: Hydraulic Fracturing,” reports this:
A drill rig just south of McGregor will be tapping into oil that’s been known about for decades.
“Everybody knows where it’s at. We’ve known it for a long time,” said Russell Atkins, Area Supervisor for Continental Resources.
But economically, it is just starting to make sense to go after the oil in the Bakken Formation.
That’s because recent developments in horizontal drilling technologies make it easier to drain a larger area underground.
“Instead of just having one well bore that intersects eight to nine feet of rock, you’re intersecting thousands of feet of rock,” said Atkins.
To view this KFYR-TV video, click HERE.
Middletown, New York’s Times Herald-Record evaluated the benefits that safe, well-regulated energy production, enabled by hydraulic fracturing, hold in store for its region. The paper reports this on yesterday’s page:
Unemployment – which hovers around 8 percent in both Sullivan and Susquehanna counties – should drop because of “the dramatic increases in development over the next five years,” according to a Workforce Needs Assessment Study, by the Marcellus Shale Education and Training Center.
By the end of this year, gas drilling will create between 1,300 and 2,100 jobs in Pennsylvania’s northern tier. Estimated wages for those jobs were unavailable.”
And energy experts are making sure the facts are being heard, too. Brad Gill, who serves as the executive director of the Independent Oil & Gas Association of New York (IOGANY), passes along the following quote in an Evening Observer article from yesterday:
The Independent Oil & Gas Association of New York (IOGA of NY) estimates the positive economic impact of 300 Marcellus Shale wells to easily reach or exceed $1.4 billion. Broken down, the wells are projected to provide $108 million to landowners, $19 million in real property tax relief for municipalities, $32 million in state tax revenue, and provide hundreds of new jobs.
“The Marcellus Shale, a geological formation in New York and contiguous states, may well prove to be one of the largest deposits of natural gas in the nation’s history,” said Brad Gill, executive director of IOGA of NY and geologist by trade. “Over the past year, we have witnessed a financial meltdown of not only New York, but of the global marketplace. Now, we have a chance to pull New York – especially the Southern Tier – out of this slump and put New Yorkers back to work.”
And David Hager, executive vice president of exploration and development for the Oklahoman-based Devon Energy, writes this in today’s Oklahoman:
By unlocking the shale, we have opened vast new natural gas supplies that were beyond our reach a decade ago. This would be exciting news at any time, but at a time in history when we are worried about energy independence and clean energy, this new development is better than a ninth-inning homer to win the Series.
The fact is that shale is a proven success story. The Barnett Shale, which Berman targets with his skepticism, has grown from almost nothing 10 years ago to the largest producing gas field in the United States. Today, the Barnett’s annual production is enough to heat 20 million homes for a year.
Because of shale, natural gas production in the United States has been on the increase in recent years, reversing a prolonged trend downward. And, these wells are expected to produce for 40 or 50 years.
Fired Up, Ready To Go! … “Bring on the jobs” & “The economic boom” in Horseheads, NY
The Village of Horseheads, in New York’s Chemung County, gave the green light last night to move forward with the construction of a Schlumberger facility that will support natural gas and hydraulic fracturing activity in the state’s Southern Tier. And while the process up to this long-awaited point has been laborious, time-intensive and at times contentious, the jury has finally spoken with the village’s board voting unanimously in favor of the project.
Horseheads Mayor Don Zeigler said “Little ‘ol sleepy hollow Horseheads is now on the map,” and another local resident said “What we are looking for now is enjoying the economic boom.”
Here’s a sampling of the early news reports on the village’s unanimous vote.
From WENY-TV:
Horseheads Mayor Don Zeigler says the board stuck to its job, addressed the public’s concerns and moved forward with the project. “I’ve had people try to intimidate us, to sway our vote, we stayed the course and I am ashamed for some of the comments,” said Mayor Don Zeigler. “Shame on those people who tried to sway our votes to do an honest job.” Mayor Zeigler says the board did an honest appraisal of the project and as far as he’s concerned it’s a done deal.
Others say, bring on the jobs. “Some of their early projects have already developed with local labor,” said Erin resident, Dave Blauvelt. “Speaking with some of the representatives, they’re very interested in having local labor involved, which is very exciting.” Project representatives say Schlumberger will fill 75 percent of the 400 positions with local workers. Mayor Zeigler says the company will bring more than just jobs. “What we are looking for now is enjoying the economic boom, houses are going, staff is coming in, they’re hiring people, it’s a first class company,” Zeigler said.”
From WBNG-TV:
“Little ‘ol sleepy hollow Horseheads is now on the map,” says Village of Horseheads Mayor Donald Zeigler. After months of study and debate, Schlumberger is coming to Horseheads. “We need new industry in Chemung County and these guys have a really good track record. They’re one of the top 500 greenest companies in America and I couldn’t be happier that this project has been approved,” says Michael Sincock of Pine City. The village board unanimously gave the gas drilling support center the green light Thursday night. It will open an 88 acre site here in Horseheads. And is expected to bring 300 jobs to the area. “What we’re looking forward to now is the economic boom. Houses are going. Some of their staff is coming in. They’re hiring people who have been laid off,” says Mayor Zeigler.”
From the Elmira Star-Gazette:
“Horseheads trustees gave final village approval Thursday to site plans for a proposed Schlumberger Technology Corp. gas drilling service facility. The unanimous vote ends months of review and controversy surrounding the project, which is expected to create 400 jobs, but also stirred environmental concerns. Schlumberger plans to locate its facility on about 90 acres it owns in The Center at Horseheads industrial park. The site will provide support services to natural gas drilling companies operating in the area.
Mayor Don Zeigler said the Schlumberger project is bigger than anything Horseheads has ever dealt with, and that the review of their plans has been exhaustive. “There has been some pressure put on us to do our job,” Zeigler said. “We did our job. We went to the horse’s mouth to check on a lot of stuff. “Some of the misinformation in the public has been an attempt to sway our vote. We came here to do an honest and fair appraisal of what came before us. I know we did it.”
From WETM-TV:
“A natural gas drilling services project in Horseheads that’s expected to create 400 jobs has been given final approval. After months of debate, the board voted to approve the site plan for Schlumberger Thursday night. … “I’m thrilled that they approved the project. I think we need the industry. I think the environmental issues here were overblown by a minority of the people,” said neighbor Michael Sincock. The mayor says the site plan approved addresses all of the concerns raised by neighbors. He says this has been a six month long process of review, discussion and public hearings. “This process started last spring and what is it now? It’s October. This is not rushing a project. We spent a lot of time and money for our engineer,” said Mayor Donald Ziegler.”
IOGCC: Information pamphlet on hydraulic fracturing process
