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From NewsOutlet.org
Utica shale and fracking news
- EPA study on fracking threat to water will take years - 11:11 PM
- Speedy review of gas export process pledged by energy secretary
- Map, details emerge about proposed $1.5 billion gas pipeline that would cross swaths of area counties
- Kasich revising Ohio drilling-tax plan
- Companies facing state charges over illegal brine dumping in Ohio’s Belmont County
- Ohio accuses company of illegally dumping shale drilling brine waste
- Colorado energy processor expands in Ohio
- Shale money could result in reduced assessments for 500,000 property owners
- Security heavy at injection well meeting at Wingfoot Lake
- Ohio injection well operator fights state action
Utica and Marcellus shale web sites
Ohio Department of Natural Resources' Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management State agency Web site.ODNR Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management. State drilling permits. List is updated weekly.
ODNR Division of Geological Survey.
Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
Ohio State University Extension.
Ohio Farm Bureau.
Ohio Oil and Gas Association, a Granville-based group that represents 1,500 Ohio energy-related companies.
Ohio Oil & Gas Energy Education Program.
Energy In Depth, a trade group.
Marcellus and Utica Shale Resource Center by Ohio law firm Bricker & Eckler.
Utica Shale, a compilation of Utica shale activities.
Landman Report Card, a site that looks at companies involved in gas and oil leases.FracFocus, a compilation of chemicals used in fracking individual wells as reported voluntarily by some drillers.
Chesapeake Energy Corp,the Oklahoma-based firm is the No. 1 driller in Ohio.
Rig Count Interactive Map by Baker Hughes, an energy services company.
Shale Sheet Fracking, a Youngstown Vindicator blog.
National Geographic's The Great Shale Rush.
The Ohio Environmental Council, a statewide eco-group based in Columbus.
Earthjustice, a national eco-group.
People's Oil and Gas Collaborative-Ohio, a grass-roots group in Northeast Ohio.
Concerned Citizens of Medina County, a grass-roots group.
No Frack Ohio, a Columbus-based grass-roots group.
Fracking: Gas Drilling's Environmental Threat by ProPublica, an online journalism site.
Pipeline, blog from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Marcellus shale drilling.
Allegheny Front, environmental public radio for Western Pennsylvania.
Reports: EPA struggling to deal with fracking issues
From thehill.com:
Congressional auditors conclude in new reports that the Environmental Protection Agency faces big hurdles overseeing a U.S. oil-and-gas drilling boom that’s creating “unknown” long-term health risks.
One of two Government Accountability Office reports made public Tuesday lays out “challenges” facing regulators amid the growth of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” the development method that’s enabling major oil and natural-gas production increases.
“Officials at EPA reported that conducting inspection and enforcement activities for oil and gas development from unconventional reservoirs is challenging due to limited information, as well as the dispersed nature of the industry and the rapid pace of development,” the report states.
Problems facing EPA include a frequent lack of “baseline” water-quality data that makes it hard to gauge alleged groundwater contamination, and overall difficulty tracking the development boom, the report states.
For instance, the report notes that it’s tough to inspect the large number of new well sites in Ohio, where the Utica shale play is attracting development, because EPA “generally does not receive information about new wells or their location.”
The report also describes limits on EPA’s legal authorities, as well as challenges facing other federal and state regulators.
“For example, EPA officials in headquarters and Regional offices told us that the exclusion of exploration and production waste from hazardous waste regulations under [the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act] significantly limits EPA’s role in regulating these wastes,” the report states.
Environmentalists and a number of Capitol Hill Democrats say that federal regulators need a stronger hand when overseeing the industry.
But repeated bills to boost regulation, including measures to end fracking’s exemption from certain Safe Drinking Water Act requirements, have not advanced.
A second report details potential public health and environmental impacts of oil-and-gas development.
“Oil and gas development, whether conventional or shale oil and gas, pose inherent environmental and public health risks, but the extent of these risks associated with shale oil and gas development is unknown, in part, because the studies GAO reviewed do not generally take into account the potential long-term, cumulative effects,” the report states.
Fracking involves high-pressure injections of water, sand and chemicals into rock formations to open up seams that enable trapped hydrocarbons to flow. The method, combined with advances in horizontal drilling, is helping to substantially boost U.S. production.
The reports, citing U.S. Energy Information Administration data, note that oil production from shale formations grew from about 39 million barrels in 2007 to about 217 million barrels in 2011.
On the natural-gas side, during the same five-year stretch, shale gas grew from 6 percent of U.S. supply to roughly 25 percent, and is slated to account for about half of the nation’s gas by 2035.
