EPA wants to know chemicals used in gas drilling

[deminks]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency asked nine natural gas companies Thursday to voluntarily disclose the chemical components used in a drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing.

The agency said the information is important to its study of the controversial drilling practice, also known as "fracking." Crews inject vast quantities of water, sand and chemicals underground to force open channels in sand and rock formations so oil and natural gas will flow.

The EPA is studying whether the practice affects drinking water and the public health.

Drilling companies have largely sought to protect their chemical formulas, calling them proprietary. Environmentalists are concerned that the chemicals, some of them carcinogens, will taint underground water supplies.

(snip)

Letters were sent to nine leading national and regional hydraulic fracturing service providers, including Halliburton, Schlumberger and Key Energy Services.





Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jrnCodmMZhIWjyiXJP_JYQUd77BgD9I4M0VG4

[valerief]

1. The EPA is a little slow on the uptake, huh? nt

[Ghost Dog]

2. Maybe the EPA (or the US Govt. in any guise) should prohibit

any such activities (within its sphere of influence) until they've had a chance to examine and analyse all the details and give the go-ahead (or not as the case may be) FIRST?

[dgauss]

3. It would be nice to see the EPA return to being an

Agency that Protects the Environment again after the assault of the Bush administration. They did everything they could to turn it into another enabler of destructive corporate looting.

[SomeGuyInEagan]

4. What do you mean "wants to know"?! They're the fucking EPA ...

... go in with subpoenas, lawyers and badges and start acting like a regulatory agency dealing with a corrupt industry. For fucking Christsakes!

[gratuitous]

7. I couldn't agree more

This is simply ridiculous anymore. There's some pretty strong evidence that these companies are poisoning the communities, which leads to a request for voluntary disclosure. Let me guess which response industry will proffer:

A. "Sure, here ya go. We got nothin' to hide!"
B. "Get bent and fuck you."

[Altoid_Cyclist]

8. This is a link to what's taking place in the Allegheny National Forest here in PA.

You would think that a National Forest would be treated with some respect since it's for public use, but the O & G companies have said that they don't need permission to drill there.

From CPR Blog:
http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=107F31E0-1E0B-E803-CA8B9191F6ED5045

Excerpt:

More than 10,000 oil and gas wells puncture the land within Pennsylvania's half-million acre Allegheny National Forest (ANF)—more than in all the other national forests combined, according to the non-profit Allegheny Defense Project. Back in the mid-1990s, about 100 new wells were drilled each year; today, it's about 1,300 per year. The boom is driven by increased interest in and exploration of the Marcellus shale reservoir, a rock formation lying 5,000-8,000 feet below a large swath of Appalachia (including Pennsylvania) believed to hold trillions of cubic feet of natural gas. Accessing the Marcellus shale was long considered prohibitively expensive, but recent advances in drilling technology and the rising price of natural gas have combined to make production profitable.

<snip>
So what’s unusual about what’s going on in the Allegheny National Forest? Critical analyses required by federal law that would normally inform the FS’s balancing of the uses at stake are being omitted. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) would normally require preparation of an environmental assessment to explore the environmental impacts of extraction activities on federal land, and depending on the severity of those impacts, possibly a full environmental impact statement. While NEPA would not preclude drilling, the environmental impacts analysis would give the public a chance to participate in the proceedings and could result in enhanced mitigation measures. However, since a 1983 decision by an Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, the FS has taken the position that NEPA doesn’t apply to private oil and gas drilling in the ANF.


How can oil and gas drilling be “private” when it occurs on national forest lands? In 1911, Congress passed the Weeks Act, which allowed the federal government to buy land in the Eastern United States for the establishment of national forests. The ANF, established in 1923, is made up of land acquired pursuant to that authority. By then, the surface and subsurface rights had already been split. Instead of purchasing both surface and subsurface rights from private owners, the federal government opted to maximize the surface area it purchased while not buying the rights to much of the subsurface below those areas. Although entirely consistent with the Weeks Act’s objectives of protecting and restoring eastern forests in the headwaters of navigable streams for flood prevention purposes, the decision has resulted in a fractured complex of rights in the Allegheny, where 93 percent of the subsurface mineral rights are held privately.

Much more: http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=107F31E0-1E0B-E803-CA8B9191F6ED5045

The PA DEP is bending over backwards to aid the drilling companies and that's the worst part about this debacle.



Excerpt from Bradford Today:
http://www.bradfordtoday.com/community/viewtopic.php?p=20393

A forest preservation group in Pennsylvania is charging that the state Department of Environmental Protection is unlawfully permitting water withdrawals for Marcellus Shale gas drilling in Western Pennsylvania.
The Allegheny Defense Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of the Allegheny National Forest, says that only riparian owners can use water from streams and rivers in this part of the state. The term refers to people whose property is adjacent to a stream.
An exception is the 1939 Water Right Act, which gives municipal authorities authorization to pull water from a river or stream and pipe it elsewhere.
In addition, the ADP claims the DEP has not listened to citizens' concerns over natural gas drilling, including the hydraulic fracturing process and disposal of waste water.
"For the last two years, DEP hasn't addressed those concerns in a public manner. What they've tried to do is create a policy that gives them regulatory authority basically out of thin air," said Bill Belitskus, ADP's board president.

More here: http://www.bradfordtoday.com/community/viewtopic.php?p=20393

[burrowowl]

5. About time already!

[lonestarnot]

6. K & R!