One thing people don’t realize – lab tests aren’t exactly definitive. ExxonMobil uses a cheap testing procedure (approved by the RRC) that reads “no detect” if there is any sort of matrix interference. (other things in the mix) We are going to experiment and thru trial and error find the best testing to find the chemicals common in ExxonMObil and Chevron’s legacy oilfields. We can run whats called a Mass Spec test. They are very expensive – $1000 but pick up everything. Then, we will back track and find which of the cheaper / readily available tests work. I’m going to teach everyone how to find and identify their oilfield contamination.

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Sixty-one percent of the health problems reported by residents in a survey are associated with the toxic air emissions detected here, according to an independent analysis released Thursday.

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Hexavalent Chromium contamination is spreading in the groundwater used by some Midland, Texas residents and environmental investigators say the mounting evidence points to the oil and gas industry. Affected residents say they have proof that hydraulic fracture giant Schlumberger is responsible.

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Jeffrey Jacquet of Cornell’s Department of Natural Resources said gas development firms prefer hiring workers they have used elsewhere and that the workers (imported or local), work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for two weeks without a break. Thousands of workers working 84 hours a week for two weeks without a break? Talk about accidents waiting to happen.

ShaleShock distributed a published column that Louis Allstadt, a retired Mobil Oil executive, wrote. Allstadt sees many problems with DEC’s current draft environmental impact statement, including its “proposed setback distances, which would allow drilling just 300 feet from New York City reservoirs, a mere 150 feet from the rest of the state’s municipal water supplies, and at any distance from individual water wells.”

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“They got sick in August. It was before school started. I thought it was just a bug and was trying to get them over it before school started. It didn’t go away and kept going until November and December. They had very severe stomach cramps and would throw up or have diarrhea, one or the other other. I was having problems with the water myself. One of my cats would throw up every time she drank the water inside, so we started using other water. This was reinforced by one of my neighbors telling me that one of my neighbors water wells had gone bad, and this was before Norma’s well had blown up. I started putting things together saying, my kids don’t get sick at school but they get sick at home.”

Just last week, the 15 families filed a lawsuit against Cabot Oil and Gas Corporation for allegedly causing a number of problems, including ruining their water supply.
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Over the past year, I have watched the hydro-fracturing industry rapidly expand into central Pennsylvania, and I have been disgusted by the consequences. The state forests, where generations of Pennsylvanians have hunted, fished, and hiked, have been defaced by a growing network of well pads. But even more disturbing are the effects that we can't see. Unknown chemicals are being pumped thousands of feet underground. The extreme pressures involved in the hydro-fracturing process are forcing methane gas into people's homes and into their water supplies. It's clear to me that hydro-fracturing is the single biggest environmental threat to Pennsylvania that this generation faces. I should say up front that I am not a scientist, nor am I an expert on this issue. What I've done here is try to sort through conflicting claims in order to present objectively the facts on the effects of hydro-fracturing.

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DEP offices in Meadville, Wilkes-Barre, Williamsport and Pittsburgh have received “many dozens” of applications for National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits to build plants to treat waste water produced in the Marcellus Shale to “clean it” before it is returned to the environment.

One of those applications belongs to Somerset Regional Water Resources, based in Tunkhannock, which has proposed a plant along the Chemung River in Athens Township. Somerset plans to build a treatment plant on a lot in the Valley Industrial Park.

Dead fish float in a once-pristine stream. Algae thrives. Lovers of the outdoors are heartsick, and everyone wants to know what happened.

The scenario is playing itself out this autumn on the Pennsylvania-West Virginia border, and a Harrisburg-based agency wants to be ready in case the same scenario unfolds in its jurisdiction.
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Gas drilling companies will try to convince you that using up to 6-million gallons of water for fracing one gas well doesn’t amount to a massive amount of water. Even if they are successful in making that argument with you, the next topic becomes flowback or brine. What do you do with the crap that comes back out of the ground?

Somewhere between 30% and 70% of the water used for hydro-fracing a gas well returns to the surface as flowback. In addition to the frac fluids added by the gas drilling companies, this water picks up other contaminants from deep in the Earth (~ 7,000 feet deep) with one of the most notable being salt.

These fluids contain sodium and calcium salts, barium, oil, strontium, iron, numerous heavy metals, soap, radiation and other components. This fluid combination becomes brine wastewater, and tanker trucks hauling it are labeled with a RESIDUAL WASTE placard. Treated brine is also sold for deicing and other applications that utilize calcium chloride, often being applied to roadways.
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It was a presentation of EPA staff concerning the new PCB Mega Rule — to an audience of several hundred mostly industry representatives.

The fact is that natural gas pipelines are now regulated under the PCB rule because many of them ARE contaminated with PCBs, due to leaking of PCB oil used in the compressor pumps which push the gas through the pipeline.

All along the gas lines — from the original wells to our homes and industries — are condensate traps where sampling often finds PCB in high levels. (Between 50 and 500 ppm)

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