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Fracking

State officials don't want feds regulating fracking

Last updated Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - 1:24pm

DENVER — Western state officials took turns bashing the federal government Wednesday at a congressional field hearing on proposed nationwide drilling rules on hydraulic fracturing.

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$In this April 22, 2008 photo, a natural gas well pad sits in front of the Roan Plateau near the Colorado mountain community of Rifle. Hydraulic fracturing, also called “fracking” or “fracing,” is a widely used but somewhat controversial oil and gas drilling technique. SOURCE: AP/David Zalubowski$

Doctors worried about Pennsylvania law on fracking

Neela Banerjee McClatchy Newspapers

Last updated Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - 10:27am

AVELLA, Pa. -- About two years ago, Dr. Amy Pare began treating members of the Moten family and their neighbors from a working-class neighborhood less than half a mile from a natural gas well here.

A plastic surgeon whose specialty includes skin cancer, Pare removed and biopsied quarter-size skin lesions from Jeannie Moten, 53, and her niece, only to find that the sores recurred. "The good news is that it wasn't cancer, and the bad news is that we have no idea what it is," Pare said.

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Lt. Gov. Greg Bell discusses illegals, housing and gasoline prices

Charles F. Trentelman Standard-Examiner

Last updated Monday, March 26, 2012 - 6:14pm

I enjoyed hearing Lt. Gov. Greg Bell talk last week to a Bank of Utah gathering about Utah’s improving economy. Because there’s always more in such a talk than can fit into a news story, I thought I’d ponder a few leftovers:

• Someone asked if illegal immigration is costing Utah taxpayers a lot of money for schools. It is illegal for schools to ask for a child’s documentation, Bell said, adding that illegals are only about 4 percent of Utah’s population.

Education, Business, Bank loan, Bank of Utah, Banking, Drilling lease, Economy, Employment, Energy leases, Federal land, Federal Lands, Financial, Fracking, Gas drilling, Gas Prices, Housing, Housing bubble, Housing crisis, Housing market, Illegal aliens, Immigrants, Jobs, Loans, Lt. Gov. Greg Bell, Oil drilling, Oil leases, Property taxes, Public land, Public lands, Staff column, Taxes, Utah, Wasatch Rambler Read more Comments

$In this July 27 file photo, the sun shines over a Range Resources well site in Washington, Pa. The company is one of many drilling into the Marcellus Shale layer deep underground and "fracking" the area to release natural gas. The federal government needs to track safety hazards tied to thousands of unregulated pipelines gathering new oil and gas supplies released through the fracking process, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)$

Audit: Gas lines tied to fracking lack oversight

Garance Burke The Associated Press

Last updated Saturday, March 24, 2012 - 10:43pm

SAN FRANCISCO — Government auditors say federal officials know nothing about thousands of miles of pipelines that carry natural gas released through the drilling method known as fracking and need to step up oversight to make sure they are running safely.

Amid the gas-drilling boom, private companies have put in hundreds of small gathering pipelines in recent years to collect new fuel supplies released through the high-pressure drilling technique.

Business, Drilling, Earthquake, earthquakes, Fracking, Gas drilling, groundwater, Natural gas, Oil drilling, Public Safety, Utah, Water Read more Comments

$FILE - In this Sept. 10, 2009 photo, Louis Meeks holds a jar filled with water from a contaminated well on his property near in Pavillion, Wyo. The ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is asking the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for more information about an EPA investigation into groundwater contamination in a Wyoming gas field. Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe asked EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson in a letter Tuesday to explain a recent comment she made about the contamination in the Pavillion area in central Wyoming. Jackson told a Bloomberg news program last month that a petroleum industry practice called hydraulic fracturing could have affected nearby areas containing groundwater. (AP Photo/Casper Star-Tribune, Kerry Huller,)$

EPA says fracking causes groundwater pollution

Mead Gruver The Associated Press

Last updated Thursday, December 8, 2011 - 3:23pm

CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the first time has implicated fracking -- a controversial method of improving the productivity of oil and gas wells -- for causing groundwater pollution.

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Scientists offer new material to aid in natural gas 'fracking'

Andrew Maykuth, The Philadelphia Inquirer McClatchy Newspapers

Last updated Thursday, June 30, 2011 - 10:13am

PHILADELPHIA -- Amid all the fuss over the water and chemicals consumed in hydraulic fracturing, few people pay attention to the other ingredient used in fracking a gas well: sand.

But John R. Hellmann does.

Long before the Marcellus Shale natural gas boom hit Pennsylvania, Hellmann and Barry Scheetz, Pennsylvania State University engineering professors, were consumed with researching "proppants" -- the stuff pumped into oil and gas wells to prop open the tiny cracks created during fracking. The most common proppant is sand.

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$A fence surrounds a water pit being used by an oil and gas company while conducting hydraulic fracturing operations. The water is being pumped directly out of an aquifer. (SHNS photo by Patrick Dove / San Angelo Standard-Times)$

Fracking gives Texas another oil boom, but at huge water cost

Kiah Collier, Scripps Howard News Service Scripps Howard News Service

Last updated Wednesday, June 29, 2011 - 3:19pm

CROCKETT COUNTY, Texas -- Plastic-lined pits holding millions of gallons of blue-green water are tucked away in fields chock-full of withering mesquite trees.

After the driest eight-month period in Texas' recorded history, this barren ranch land has become inhospitable to even the most drought-resistant vegetation.

So where, amid the severe dry spell, did all this pristine water come from?

The query probably would not have been raised in non-drought times in this oil-friendly community.

But as West Texas' reservoirs run dry, cities are scouring the region for their next water supply, and farmers are becoming more desperate for rainfall, oil companies here and elsewhere are pumping out millions of gallons of freshwater from underground aquifers.

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