Anti-fracking group to submit county plan

According to a report submitted by the group on their experiences, they were hosted by the Wetzel County Action Group in their tour. Many Athens area residents have been taking the Wetzel tour, and have submitted descriptions of what they've observed as op-eds to The Athens NEWS.

"Northern Wetzel County is home to 33 Marcellus Shale gas wells and three compressor stations installed by Chesapeake (Energy) in a six-square mile area of the county since 2007," the report states. "Chesapeake has a total of 140 wells permitted in Wetzel, and many additional wells and permits exist with other companies. What was once miles of bucolic forested and agricultural West Virginia countryside is now a rural industrial petrochemical complex."

The report was provided by local resident Al Blazevicious. Other members of the group included Ann Brown, Ken Edwards, Jane Jacobs, Bruce Kuhre, Loraine McCosker, Celia Wetzel and Athens City Council member Michele Papai. Some of these individuals, including McCosker and Wetzel, have been outspoken critics of horizontal hydraulic fracturing.

"We saw numerous ridgetop drill pads and compressor stations, and spoke to several farmers who experienced significant impacts on their water, air, land, livelihoods, property values, personal health and quality of life," the group reported.

That change in landscape was a major thrust of the group's report.

"The life and viewscape in Wetzel County has changed from rolling agricultural hills, woods, streams and ponds, to an industrial landscape," they said. "The ridgetops are now filled with gas wells, storage tanks, compressor stations, huge storage ponds with slipping dams, while the trucks, noise, pollution and frack waste roll on (into southeast Ohio)."

They wrote that responsible citizens have an obligation to themselves and the community to view the impacts of the drilling technique firsthand.

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Fracking gets its own "Occupy" movement

This is a story about water, the land surrounding it, and the lives it sustains. Clean water should be a right: there is no life without it. New York is what you might call a “water state.” Its rivers and their tributaries only start with the St. Lawrence, the Hudson, the Delaware, and the Susquehanna. The best known of its lakes are Great Lakes Erie and Ontario, Lake George, and the Finger Lakes. Its brooks, creeks, and trout streams are fishermen’s lore.

Far below this rippling wealth there’s a vast, rocky netherworld called the Marcellus Shale. Stretching through southern New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, the shale contains bubbles of methane, the remains of life that died 400 million years ago. Gas corporations have lusted for the methane in the Marcellus since at least 1967 when one of them plotted with the Atomic Energy Agency to explode a nuclear bomb to unleash it. That idea died, but it’s been reborn in the form of a technology invented by Halliburton Corporation: high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing -- “fracking” for short.

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Opponents Blast North Lima Injection Well

NORTH LIMA, Ohio -- Julia Fuhrman Davis, a resident of Beaver Township, billed the session as "North Lima Injection Well Meeting" but the gathering of some 200 township residents Tuesday night was more like a kangaroo court.

Even before Davis called the meeting to order, the list of speakers and agenda implied a presumption of guilt. The oil and gas industry -- D&L Energy Inc. in particular -- has a callous disregard for the environment and is interested only in profits, the speakers would say. 

Her agenda began (the emphases are in the original):

"The Beaver Township injection well on Route 7, named North Star Lucky #4, will soon be receiving hazardous industrial waste waterfrom PA. A by-product of Marcellus/Utica Shale gas fracking, it contains chemicals (that cause cancer, birth defects and other health problems), salt, heavy metals and radioactive materials."

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Dozens protest gas drilling method of fracking in Columbus

Columbus -- Jamie Frederick held up a pair of heavy-duty ear protectors that she used in an attempt to block out the sounds of oil and gas drilling near her home.

They didn't work.

"Living through the drilling and fracking phase of the most recent well was a truly terrifying experience," Frederick said.

"... Twenty-four-seven, nonstop, we were subjected to such unbelievable levels of noise that you could only understand if you heard if for yourself. It would have been more peaceful to live on an airport runway."

At an anti-fracking rally Jan. 10 at the Statehouse, she recounted health problems, contaminated water, property damage and other issues that have affected her and her husband since they moved to the Youngtown area.

"I have a message for you, Gov. Kasich, and to you, Mr. Gasman," she said. "You may have taken my safety and my property value. You may have taken my gallbladder and you may have taken my ability to have children, but you will not take my voice. And I will not stop until you stop."

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State reps seek rules on fracking

MANSFIELD -- Two Ohio House members told concerned north central Ohioans they are looking into ways to tighten Ohio's regulation of fracking and injection disposal wells.

State Rep. David Hall, R-Millersburg, chairman of the House natural resources and agriculture committee, and State Rep. Jay Goyal, D-Mansfield, spoke during a four-hour-long "Fracking Forum" held Saturday at the Mansfield-Richland County Public Library.

Goyal said he tries to maintain an open mind about Preferred Fluids Management's proposal to drill two 5,000-foot-deep injection wells for disposal of fracking waste on Mansfield's far north side.

But that facility would produce just two jobs on-site at the injection well, plus possibly six for Ashland Railway, while leaving the community open to the risk of groundwater contamination from waste fluids injected down the wells, Goyal said.

"Frankly, I really see little or no benefit of having an injection well in our community," he said. "Even if it's a 0.1 percent chance of our groundwater being contaminated, it does not make any sense to allow this in our community."

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Scientists Studying Connection Between Fracking And Earthquakes

The connection between fracking and earthquakes, however, could spur significant changes in state policies, The Wall Street Journal reports. The federal government does not develop or enforce fracking regulations, leaving the matter to states. As a result, states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio have divergent laws pertaining to fracking and the treatment of drilling wastewater.

Ohio lawmakers are divided over fracking, but a 4.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Youngstown last week has rattled even supporters. Ohio Governor John Kasich, who supports fracking, shut the wastewater well that experts said likely prompted the earthquake. He also ordered a thorough review of all seismic activity in the area.

A number of prominent engineers have lobbied government officials to outlaw fracking until the scientific community reaches a consensus on long-term safety problems. Even amid such concerns, though, many public leaders have endorsed fracking, arguing that it has caused natural gas prices to drop precipitously, and has made the U.S. the biggest natural gas producer in the world.

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REPORT: NATURAL GAS FROM SHALE NOT SUITABLE AS “BRIDGE FUEL,” MAY WORSEN CLIMATE CHANGE

The new paper emphasizes this 20-year time frame, and analyzes the US national greenhouse gas inventory in that context.

The 20-year time frame is particularly important, the authors explain, because it may well be the timing for a “tipping point” for climate change if emissions are not brought under immediate control.  The new paper builds on major new findings from the United Nations and from researchers at NASA published over the past six months, highlighting the urgent need to immediately reduce methane pollution globally. 

Robert W. Howarth, David R. Atkinson professor, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Cornell 

University, said:   “We believe the preponderance of evidence indicates shale gas has a larger 

greenhouse gas footprint than conventional gas, considered over any time scale.  The 

greenhouse gas footprint of shale gas also exceeds that of oil or coal when considered at decadal 

time scales, no matter how the gas is used.  We stand by the conclusion of our 2011 research:  

‘The large [greenhouse gas] footprint of shale gas undercuts the logic of its use as a bridging fuel 

over coming decades, if the goal is to reduce global warming.’”

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