Follow No Frack Ohio
Search
Recent News
Bloomburg News By Lisa Song - Dec 3, 2012 InsideClimateNews.org -- For years, the controversy over natural gas drilling has focused on the water and air quality problems linked to hydraulic fracturing, the process where chemicals are blasted deep underground to release tightly bound natural gas deposits. But a new study reports that a set of chemicals called non-methane hydrocarbons, or NMHCs, ...
This action follows the action camp hosted by Appalachia Resist! which served as a training for an ever widening group of community members, including farmers, landowners, and families who want to join the resistance to injection wells and the fracking industry in Southeast Ohio.  With this action, Appalachia Resist! sends the message to the oil and gas industry that our ...
For Immediate Release Athens (OH) County Fracking Action Network, acfan.org Sept. 12, 2012 contact: Roxanne Groff, 740-707-3610, grofski@earthlink.net, acfanohio@gmail.com A public notice for an Athens County injection well permit application for the Atha well on Rte. 144 near Frost, OH, has been posted.  Citizens have until Sept. 28 to send in comments and concerns about the application ...
August 1, 2012   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   Contacts: Alison Auciello, Food & Water Watch, (513) 394-6257, aauciello@fwwatch.org / Council Member Laure Quinlivan, City of Cincinati, (513) 352-5303, Laure.Quinlivan@cincinnati-oh.gov       Cincinnati Becomes First Ohio City to Ban Injection Wells CINCINNATI, Ohio—Following today’s unanimous vote by the Cincinnati City Council to ban injection wells associated with ...
To the Editor: Wayne National Forest leaders and spokespersons expressed satisfaction with Wednesday's "open forum" on high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing (HVHHF) on forest lands: a first in their history. It's hard to understand this satisfaction. Anne Carey, Wayne supervisor, said the forum was intended to inform; public participants disputed the "facts." Wayne spokesperson Gary Chancey repeatedly listed participating Wayne ...
Our energy  writer Elizabeth Souder has an eagle’s eye and found this really interesting item. Legendary oilman and Barnett Shale fracking expert George Mitchell  has told Forbes that  the federal government should do more to regulate hydraulic fracturing. That’s right, an energy guy calling for more rules on fracking.   And  his reason for more regulation is pretty straightforward:  “Because if they don’t do ...
News Archives
« Lobby the Forest Service to not allow leasing of Wayne forest for fracking | Main | NYPIRG joins bipartisan lawmakers asking Cuomo to scrap fracking regs »
Tuesday
May082012

Wyoming pushed EPA to delay study on fracking: report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The governor of Wyoming pressed the top U.S. environmental regulator to delay its December, 2011 release of a draft study linking fracking for natural gas to contamination of drinking water, a news report said on Thursday.

Governor Matt Mead contacted Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson and persuaded her to delay for about a month releasing the study that found fluids used in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, had likely polluted an aquifer in the small town of Pavillion, the Associated Press report said.

The delay gave state officials time to raise dozens of questions about the draft study and coordinate an "all-out-press" against the EPA in the weeks before the agency released the study on December 8 last year, said the report, which relied on emails obtained from a state records request and an interview with Mead, a drilling supporter.

The Obama administration has been walking a fine line between promoting natural gas drilling and regulating technologies including fracking that have given the industry access to vast new supplies.

Just a few years ago the country was trying to import natural gas, but now it could become a major exporter. But environmental and health groups say fracking operations near schools and homes can pollute the air and water.

Last month a blow out at a Chesapeake Energy Corp well in Wyoming triggered a leak of unknown quantities of natural gas and drilling mud.

Under pressure from officials in Wyoming, which produces about 10 percent of U.S. natural gas and ranks as the third biggest U.S. onshore producer of the fuel, the EPA announced in March it would retest the aquifer with cooperation from the Wyoming state government.

President Barack Obama issued an executive order last month streamlining oversight of shale gas drilling that acknowledged states are the main regulators of the industry as most production occurs on private land.

Jim Martin, a regional EPA administrator in Colorado, said the agency had "consulted with and relied on the expertise of a range of stake holders," including officials in Wyoming's government, the federal Bureau of Land Management and local tribes, since the start of its investigation in Pavillion.

The draft study on the Wyoming water is open for public comment through October. Then a peer review of the report will be conducted by independent scientists.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-rt-us-usa-fracking-epabre8421k9-20120503,0,7912536.story

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.

My response is on my own website »
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>