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Jeff Goodell

*UPDATE IV* A Rolling Stone Gathers No Facts
As serious people continue to cite serious evidence in support of the proposition of responsible development, a fundamentally unserious account of the current debate was posted this week on the website of Rolling Stone magazine. Coming in at 6,200 words on the dot, the piece can most charitably be described as a not-so-quick (but plenty dirty) rehash of previously debunked charges and talking points, offered up by the same usual cast of characters that’s frequently wheeled-out and introduced anew any time a hit-piece is in the offing.

UPDATE IV (Mar. 8, 2012; 9:28 a.m.): Another thing from Goodell’s response that really chaps our hide. This statement: “But when it came time to answer more substantial questions, all traces of transparency vanished. A quick example: I asked Chesapeake three times to provide me with a statistic for the total volume of dirty flowback water the company handled in the Marcellus Shale region last year. I got no answer.”

In our last update (below), we inquired whether Mr. Goodell had access to the Internet. Assuming he does, he’ll be interested, we think, in this website: https://www.paoilandgasreporting.state.pa.us/publicreports/Modules/Waste/WasteByOperator.aspx. It’s operated and maintained by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection, and it tracks the volume, type and final disposition point of every barrel of wastewater that’s generated across the state (from both Marcellus and non-Marcellus wells). According to Goodell, this information is top-secret. And that’s true: unless you have a modem.

UPDATE III (Mar. 7, 2012; 5:35 p.m. ET): The full-scale, pell-mell retreat on the part of Jeff Goodell’s keystone sources – the people upon which the entire Rolling Stone narrative is based – continues this week, with peak-oil writer and solar advocate Chris Nelder joining Art Berman in distancing himself from things attributed to him by Goodell in his piece. From Nelder’s blog: The article “appears to have drawn heavily from my recent pieces on shale gas, although without direct attribution. … I should clarify that I do not agree with all of Goodell’s representations.”

So what do you do when the two sources you literally handpicked to help manufacture the thesis at the core of your 6,200-word article in Rolling Stone suddenly go sideways on you? If you’re Jeff Goodell, you write a detailed response piece to the mounting criticism of your work – but not so detailed that you actually acknowledge the existence of the statements from Berman and Nelder. Nah, you just ignore those.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Goodell’s reply was posted at 10:22 a.m. on March 6. Berman’s post went live on March 3, and Nelder’s on March 5. Is it possible Goodell doesn’t have an Internet connection?

UPDATE II (Mar. 5, 2012; 11:10 a.m. ET): The New York Post’s Abby Schachter has a must-read piece responding to the Rolling Stone story, appropriately entitled “Another shale gas attack full of hot air.” Abby highlights the gross mischaracterization of Art Berman’s comments about shale supposedly being a “Ponzi scheme.” Definitely worth reading in its entirety.

UPDATE (Mar. 4, 2012; 4:25 p.m. ET): Obviously no secret by now that we disagree strongly with Art Berman’s much-publicized thesis on the resource potential of shale. But as we’ve written before, he’s actually a lovely guy to be around in person, and, when things need to be corrected, a stand-up guy as well — taking to his blog over the weekend to set the record straight on how Jeff Goodell “mischaracterized” comments attributed to him in Rolling Stone. From Berman’s blog: “I never said that Chesapeake or any other company involved in shale gas drilling is involved in or resembles a Ponzi scheme. That may be what Goodell thinks but that is not what I said, think or imply.” Read the complete post here.

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If you happen to oppose the responsible development of clean, affordable and enormously abundant reserves of natural gas from shale, it’s tough to imagine the past month-and-a-half being a period upon which you, when it’s all said and done, will look back fondly.

For these folks, the unraveling began in earnest on the evening of Jan. 24, when the president devoted a portion of his State of the Union address to the promise and potential of shale, suggesting that advancements in technology are “proving that we don’t have to choose between our environment and our economy.” A couple weeks later, the Univ. of Texas released a 414-page, fact-based report on hydraulic fracturing, rendering judgment on whether fracturing technology is connected to adverse impacts on water (it isn’t) and providing new evidence of the presence of naturally occurring methane in drinking water. The study, out for nearly a month now and widely reported on in the press, has been met by a cacophony of crickets from the other side.

Back in Washington, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior derided as “urban legend” the myth of fracturing-qua-environmental scourge, lamenting to a House committee the “hysteria” that has come to distort the debate. On Feb. 9, the U.S. Secretary of Energy, winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in physics, suggested to an audience in Pittsburgh that the development of shale “can free [the] nation.”

Last week, the International Business Times characterized EPA administrator Lisa Jackson as striking a “bullish tone” on the safety of fracturing at a forum in New Jersey. And just this week, President Clinton, himself up for a Nobel Prize, said the country needed to end its “ambivalence” over clean-burning natural gas, judging it a clear winner for our country. New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg followed that up with his own positive comments, suggesting that “with appropriate safeguards, I think fracking is something that on balance is better for this country.”

Against this backdrop, as serious people continue to cite serious evidence in support of the proposition of responsible development, a fundamentally unserious account of the current debate was posted this week on the website of Rolling Stone magazine. Coming in at 6,200 words on the dot, the piece can most charitably be described as a not-so-quick (but plenty dirty) rehash of previously debunked charges and talking points, offered up by the same usual cast of characters that’s frequently wheeled-out and introduced anew any time a hit-piece is in the offing.

But in the end, the story fails not because its original reporting is bad, though it is. It fails because nothing resembling original reporting can be found anywhere in it. According to an item posted on Friday by John Hanger, former Pennsylvania DEP secretary and CEO of PennFuture, a leading environmental group: “[Rolling Stone’s] Jeff Goodell … should split his pay with the NYT gas reporter, because Goodell regurgitates all the NYT’s greatest gas hits, including ones that the NYT public editor found to be misleading or false.”

Below, we take a look at some of the more obvious errors that contributed to what, in the end, was a pretty ridiculous piece.

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Rolling Stone: “Fracking, it turns out, is about producing cheap energy the same way the mortgage crisis was about helping realize the dreams of middle-class homeowners.”

RS: “[N]ew studies suggest that because of fugitive emissions of methane from wellheads and pipelines, natural gas may actually be no better than coal when it comes to global warming.”

RS: “’In the Marcellus, the boom has just begun,’ says [Tony] Ingraffea, the Cornell engineer. ‘The idea is to drill everywhere.’”

RS: “According to Arthur Berman, a respected energy consultant in Texas who has spent years studying the industry, Chesapeake and its lesser competitors resemble a Ponzi scheme, overhyping the promise of shale gas in an effort to recoup their huge investments in leases and drilling.”

RS: “The Oscar-nominated film Gasland exposed the dark underbelly of fracking, interviewing residents who could literally light their faucets on fire, thanks to the gas that had contaminated their drinking water.”

RS: “Last year, The New York Times documented how gas drillers were dumping millions of gallons of irradiated wastewater loaded with toxic chemicals into Pennsylvania’s rivers and streams, largely without regulatory oversight.”

RS: “In January, the Energy Department cut its estimate of the amount of gas available in the Marcellus Shale by nearly 70 percent, and a group affiliated with the Colorado School of Mines warns that there may be only 23 years’ worth of economically recoverable gas left nationwide.”

RS: “’The more land they acquire, the more capital they have to spend upfront,’ says Deborah Rogers, a former investment banker who …looked into the firm’s financial statements after the company sunk wells near her property in Texas.”

RS: “‘Done right, drilling and fracking does not pollute drinking water.’ This, in essence, is the mantra … Everything we do is safe and environmentally responsible. Trust us.”

Don’t trust us? How about these guys?

RS: “It’s also impossible to know what chemicals are flowing out of the wells, or how toxic they are, because companies … are not required to disclose the compounds they use in fracking operations. Providers of fracking fluids … claim that the composition of such fluids can’t be revealed without disclosing trade secrets. In 2005, the industry lobbied hard for what’s known as ‘the Halliburton loophole,’ which exempts it from federal disclosure requirements.”

RS: “Last year, scientists at Duke University … published the first rigorous, peer-reviewed study of pollution at drilling and fracking operations. Examining 60 sites in New York and Pennsylvania, they found ‘systematic evidence for methane contamination’ in household drinking water … The study caused a big stir, in part because it was the first clear evidence that fracking was contaminating drinking water.”

RS: “[Sherry] Vargson noticed not long after production began in 2009 that water in the trough out back stopped freezing on cold nights. Inside the house, the faucet began to sputter and spit. Her husband seemed to have a lot of headaches, and Vargson felt nauseous if she stayed in the shower for more than a few minutes. Acting on a tip from a friend, she had her water tested. It was loaded with methane.”

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