GASLAND
*7:00 PM, **THURSDAY JANUARY 20*
*UNITED METHODIST CHURCH*
*1319* *Eighth Street Drive, Watsontown, PA*
*FREE ADMISSION*
*Sponsored by Warrior Run Residents for Responsible Development*
This hard-hitting documentary film tells the story of hydraulic fracturing –
the drilling process developed by Halliburton that is used to extract
natural gas from deep shale deposits such as PA’s Marcellus. In the film,
Fox travels the U.S. conducting interviews with families, EPA
whistleblowers, congressmen, and scientists whose stories of government
cover ups, human and animal illness, devastated property values, and
poisoned drinking water all relate back to the technology known as
“fracking”. The focus of the movie is on the exact form of industrialization
rapidly expanding throughout our region.
Hangar’s Farewell
* *
Pennsylvania’s outgoing Department of Environmental Protection Secretary, *John
Hanger*, sent a message Thursday night thanking department employees and
other supporters for their work and offering his good wishes to incoming DEP
Secretary Michael Krancer, a judge with the state’s Environmental Hearing
Board. Hangar had this to say about a severance tax on gas drilling; a fee
that incoming Governor Tom Ridge has promised the industry he will NOT
impose.
*“Taxing gas drilling offers an enormous opportunity to pay for a decades
long environmental clean up of our watersheds, our lands, and our air. A
drilling tax could easily raise $200 million per year to pay for restoring
streams destroyed by coal mining and to finance open space purchases and
much more environmental improvement. Governor Ridge enacted Growing Greener.
Governor Rendell won passage of Growing Greener 2 but its funds have now
been invested and are exhausted. Pennsylvania has much more clean-up to do
and needs Growing Greener 3. A drilling tax that is supported by at least
63% of Pennsylvanians could finance for decades environmental clean up that
could to do enormous good for our environment. This is a major opportunity
presented by the Marcellus gas reserve. Failing to tax the Marcellus makes
no sense and is a major piece of undone business. The Marcellus gas industry
is now huge, with billions of foreign investment pouring into Pennsylvania
and with tax-free profits going back to China, Norway, India, and Great
Britain. Every state has a drilling tax and none of those states has killed
their golden goose. And the Marcellus goose is the most golden of all
because the gas here is comparatively low cost to produce, low-cost to
deliver to markets in New York and Boston, and high profit. We must tax it
and use at least one-third of the revenues to fund Growing Greener 3 and
other environmental programs.”*
Read more of Hangar’s comments at:
http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/blog/energy/2011/01/dep-hanger-...
Big Payoffs From Gas Industry Given to Opponents of Frack Chemical
Disclosure
The U.S. Congress isn’t going to regulate hydraulic fracturing any time
soon. But the Department of Interior might. For starters, Interior
is mulling whether it should require drilling companies to disclose the
chemicals they use to frack wells drilled on public lands, and already the
suggestion has earned Interior Secretary Ken Salazar an earful.
On January 5, a bipartisan group of 32 members of Congress, who belong to
the Natural Gas Caucus, sent Salazar a letter imploring him to resist a
hasty decision because more regulations would “increase energy costs for
consumers, suppress job creation in a promising energy sector, and hinder
our nation’s ability to become more energy independent*.”*
A week later, 46 House Democrats followed up by signing a letter to
Salazar urging him to at least adopt the disclosure requirement because, as
Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., said, “communities across America have seen
their water contaminated by the chemicals used in the hydraulic
fracturing process.”
"The public has a right to know what toxins might be going into the ground
near their communities, and what might be leaking into their drinking
water," said the letter, which was sent by the three initial sponsors of
now-stalled legislation to regulate fracturing, Hinchey, Rep. Jared Polis,
D-Colo., and Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo.
In the context of today’s roiling political and energy debates, it’s not at
all clear who will win. But if money is an indicator, the *anti*-regulatory
group has the upper hand.
An analysis of campaign finance dollars contributed to the members of
Congress shows that the Natural Gas Caucus received 19 times more money from
the oil and gas industry between 2009 and 2010 than the group who signed
Rep. Hinchey’s letter. The top greased palm belongs to Co-Chair of the Gas
Caucus, Tom Murphy, the PA Republican who accepted over $200,000 from the
gas industry. According to data from Open Secrets, the 32 members against
disclosure received $1,742,572. By comparison, the group supporting full
disclosure of fracking chemicals - which has 14 more people than the Natural
Gas Caucus—received $91,212 from the industry.
In 2009, 19,000 new gas wells were drilled, adding to the 493,000 gas wells
already producing in the United States. According to Hinchey’s office,
disclosure on federal lands would set an important precedent, because that
information would become part of the public record and, when combined
with state-based disclosure rules, “would provide a great deal of
useful information for those concerned with the risks these chemicals may
pose.”
Traditionally, the exact recipes of chemicals used in the fracturing process
have been kept secret by the companies to protect their competitive
advantage, and the fracturing process itself is exempt from federal
regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The disclosure issue has
become a rallying point against natural gas development in the United States
because scientists have repeatedly said that they can’t thoroughly examine
water contamination cases for links to drilling because they don’t know what
to test for.
Condensed by RDA from the original by* Abrahm
Lustgarten<http://www.propublica.org/site/author/Abrahm_Lustgarten/>
ProPublica, Jan. 14, 2011, 2:46 p.m.*
Quotes of the week:
From the forum held in Laporte on January 14th
*“This is a corporate business plan, not a national energy strategy.”* Dr.
Tony Ingraffea, speaking of the current rush to drill that is utterly
lacking in any comprehensive plan.
*“This is a complex industry that will not learn unless they practice. We
need to give them space to figure it out. I come from the religion that the
industry will do it right.”* Dr. Terry Engelder, referring to the gas
industry’s need to be given time and space here in PA so they can learn how
to drill wells correctly. Engelder quoted John F. Kennedy and informed those
present that PA citizens must be willing to make sacrifices to allow this
“practice” to occur.
NOTE: RDA agrees with Dr. Ingraffea, who noted that over 10,000 deep shale
wells have already been drilled in Texas. Ingraffea questioned how much more
practice the gas industry might need to get it right, and how much we will
have to sacrifice in order for the industry to fully implement its business
plan.
Share Your Photos
Dickinson College's ALLARM [Alliance of Aquatic Resource Monitoring] is
requesting photos taken at or near Marcellus drilling sites that provide
visual images in any of the following categories:
Gas Related Earth Disturbances
- Sediment plumes in creeks near a site
- Mud/sediment on access roads
- Improper erosion and sedimentation control measures on the pad/storage
pond/staging areas
Spills and discharges
- Foamy and/or discolored water
- Dead organisms (plant/animal/fish) near a site
Gas Migration or Leakage
- Gas bubbling
ALLARM is looking for good photos to illustrate what to look for when
monitoring around drill-sites.
If you have any pictures that you could share or references to websites and
blogs that illustrate any of the above categories, please contact Julie
Vastine at:
Julie Vastine, Director
The Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring (ALLARM)
Dickinson College - Environmental Studies Dept.
phone: 717.245.1135 fax: 717.245.1971 email: vast...@dickinson.edu
*17-Minute Summary***
Not a trailer for the movie Gasland, but an excellent sneak preview of what
you will learn in Josh Fox’s film. This short video offers a good overview
of what you can expect from gas drilling in PA. Watch the video by clicking
here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEB_Wwe-uBM
S.O.S.
* *
If you haven’t already signed the petition to save PA State Forestland from
further leasing to gas drillers, please do so today at
www.SOSinPA.org<http://www.sosinpa.org/>
