AP Exclusive: Wyo. got EPA to delay frack finding

Source: SFGate.com
By Mead Gruver, Associated Press
May 3, 2012

In internal emails that followed the Nov. 4 briefing, state officials expressed support for fracking as critical to oil and gas extraction, a $7.7 billion a year industry in Wyoming that accounts for 20 percent of the state's gross domestic product.

"The limiting of the hydraulic fracturing process will result in negative impacts to the oil and gas revenues to the state of Wyoming. A further outcome will be the questioning of the economic viability of all unconventional and tight oil and gas reservoirs in Wyoming, across the United States, and ultimately in the world," wrote Tom Doll, supervisor of the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, in a long email that circulated among top state officials.

Wyoming's top state regulator of oil and gas development, including essentially all fracking in the state, Doll was a district manager for Tulsa, Okla.-based Williams Production Company until 2008.

The spark for Doll's missive was the closed-door meeting at Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality headquarters in Cheyenne two days earlier. EPA administrator Martin briefed Wyoming officials about what the EPA was about to announce based on its research in Pavillion. Doll took part by phone.

"Contaminants present at high concentrations in the deep monitoring wells are likely a result of hydraulic fracturing," read a "Key Findings" slide in an EPA PowerPoint shown at the meeting. Each slide was marked "Confidential--Do Not Disclose."

The public announcement more than a month later stated that the groundwater "contains compounds likely associated with gas production practices, including hydraulic fracturing."

The EPA also suggested at the private meeting that gas development likely had contaminated household well water in the Pavillion area but that current data did not definitively support such a link. The EPA has made no such claim in public to date.

Emails show that Mead sought to reach Jackson within hours. Mead confirmed that he got her to hold off on the findings report until state officials could review the data.

"When I talked to Lisa Jackson they were going to release the findings regardless. That wasn't even the question. The question was on the timing of it. We wanted a chance to see what are they basing this on," Mead told the AP.

"She said, `Well, maybe we can hold off a couple weeks to give you guys this data.'"




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Fracking of wells puts big demand on Colorado Water

The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley

FORT LUPTON — Oil and gas drillers have bought at least 500 million gallons of water this year from cities for use in hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," along Colorado's Front Range.

Now they need more.

It's the only way they'll be able to sink thousands of new wells into the Niobrara formation that — if announcements last week by Houston-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp. are correct — contains about 1 billion barrels of oil.

Each well drilled requires 1 million to 5 million gallons of water, and more when they are refracked.

Drillers "may need more water than we have," said John McGee, water manager for the city of Loveland, which has leased municipal water.

In Fort Lupton, tanker trucks tap hydrants to fill up. It's the same in Greeley, Frederick, Firestone and other communities amid the expanding oil fields north of Denver.

The trucks haul the water to rigs, where fracking crews mix it with sand and chemicals and pump it thousands of feet underground to release oil and gas.

But as companies propose new deals with utilities, including Aurora Water, they're finding that a resource often scarce for people and agriculture may be limited for fracking too.

State natural resources planners say they're working with the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to calculate, within the next week or so, how much water may be available for oil and gas drilling.

For years, state officials have projected shortfalls of 600,000 to 1 million acre-feet of water needed to sustain Colorado's population and agriculture.

Restrictions abound

Court-enforced compacts oblige Colorado to let some water flow down rivers to other states. Unlike water diverted from mountain rivers for use by cities and farms, much of the water pumped underground for fracking stays there.

And water diverted from mountain rivers on the Western Slope to Front Range cities legally must be used within specified service areas — preventing long-distance hauling to rigs.

"That is a concern," said Brian Werner, spokesman for the Northern Colorado Water Conservation District, which delivers diverted water widely. District board members are discussing new rules to minimize legal exposure.

"It's up to each municipality to see how much available water they have to sell," said Sean Conway, a Weld County commissioner who helped launch a "Niobrara Working Group" to deal with water and other issues. "We must ensure that we don't jeopardize our agricultural heritage."

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Dr. Gary Wockner of Clean Water Action posted the data below last year.

War Over Natural Gas About to Escalate - Sierra Club Launches 'Beyond Natural Gas' Campaign

Amy Harder

Updated: May 3, 2012 | 2:03 p.m.
May 3, 2012 | 2:02 p.m.

NationalJournal.com

AP PHOTO/CAROLYN KASTER

Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune on the National Mall in June 2010

The rocky relationship between one of the world’s most influential environmental groups and the natural-gas industry is headed toward full-scale combat.

The Sierra Club is intensifying its natural-gas reform campaign and renaming it “Beyond Gas,” a spin-off of its decade-old “Beyond Coal” campaign seeking the phaseout of coal-fired power plants.

“As we push to retire coal plants, we’re going to work to make sure we’re not simultaneously switching to natural-gas infrastructure,” Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune told National Journal in an interview on Wednesday. “And we’re going to be preventing new gas plants from being built wherever we can.”

The name for the campaign was actually decided about two weeks ago but hasn’t yet appeared prominently on the group’s website, Brune said. “Beyond Gas” represents a significant expansion of the group’s ongoing efforts against increased natural-gas production and will be integrated with campaigns against the other major fossil fuels, oil and coal.

The stronger anti-gas push is “in large part due to the emerging reality that the climate impact of gas is much worse than we thought, and the availability of renewables is much better than we thought,” Brune said.

That 33 states now have renewable-electricity standards shows that the country is closer to depending on clean energy sch as wind and solar power than most people think, he said. “It would be the height of irony if we decrease our reliance on coal and rather than jumping to clean energy, we replace one dirty fuel with another.” 

To some longtime energy experts, the Sierra Club’s growing hostility toward natural gas isn’t surprising. "I have warned that based on concerns by some environmentalists, gas could become the coal of tomorrow," said Lisa Epifani, a partner at Van Ness Feldman who was previously an assistant secretary of Energy and counsel to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee under former Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.

Vast reserves of shale natural gas discovered in recent years have promised the country decades of a domestic energy supply that many experts—along with President Obama—consider a cleaner fossil-fuel alternative to coal and oil. Natural gas burns with 50 percent fewer emissions than coal and is 20 to 30 percent cleaner than oil.

But the gas boom has also brought growing environmental concerns, particularly about hydraulic fracturing, the extraction process known as “fracking” that some fear is contaminating drinking-water supplies. The process also could be causing increased methane emissions that can intensify global warming.

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Please sign the Water Bill of Rights Today

TakePart.com
April, 30 2012





SIGN PETITION HERE 

Americans have the right to safe, clean and accessible drinking water at replenishable levels. And the organizations in our community - including governments, corporations and nonprofits - have the responsibility to protect our water resources for me, my family, my community and for future generations.

I believe we have certain rights to our water and that both local and national governments must do the following to properly manage our water:

1. Quality. Monitor water sources and educate Americans about the presence and effects of chemicals and contaminants in our water, and inform people about the sources of, and possible threats to, their water.

2. Conservation. Support policies that replenish and sustain our local water resources for our entire community, and measure groundwater and surface water sources to guarantee proper monitoring and usage of public resources; where possible, provide incentives to businesses and individuals to conserve water resources; promote fair and equitable allocation of resources.

3. Consumption. Inform Americans about effective ways to moderate - or minimize - their personal consumption of public water resources, including the environmental effects of consuming bottled water, and to educate people about "hidden water."

4. Infrastructure. Support polices to upgrade and protect infrastructure systems to prevent economic loss from damaged systems, promote recycled water and provide safe, clean and consistent water resources for all in our community.

About this Petition

The Water Bill of Rights is a declaration that all Americans deserve access to safe, clean drinking water.

As depicted in Participant Media's documentary, Last Call at the Oasis, the United States faces a significant crisis in terms of water quality and quantity. Our aging infrastructure, overuse of chemical pollutants, and inefficient practices are wasting our most precious resource, and we must take action now. In the coming months, we'll be delivering this declaration to members of Congress and state governors and asking them to make water issues an ongoing priority.

Sign the Bill of Rights now to add your voice to this critical discussion.

After you sign the Water Bill of Rights, share it on Twitter and Facebook and ask your friends and family to join you in signing and invite them to learn more about the critical issues surrounding our water crisis.

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Please sign the petition today.

Bakken Shale Drilling Activity 2010 [TIMELAPSE]

Uploaded by TheTimoneyGroup on Mar 1, 2011
Tweeted By: @OccupyGreed

NORTH DAKOTA DRILLING TIMELAPSE
 

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Might we interest you in our backyard? Have a look at 18,000 active oil and gas wells in Weld County, Colorado. Absolutely SICK SHIT!

Crew Stops Flow of Gas at Well Blowout - Residents Evacuated

Source: WyoFile
April 27,2012

Natural gas is no longer venting from the Combs Ranch Unit 29-33-70 1H well north of Douglas as of 11:05 a.m. today (Friday), according to a state official.

Well control specialists Boots & Coots and oilfield services company Halliburton had initiated well-plugging efforts at 9:25 a.m. today at the Chesapeake Energy (NYSE:CHK) drilling location 10 miles north of Douglas, according to the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (WOGCC). The well had been venting gas since a blowout on Tuesday afternoon.

Chesapeake is one of several operators testing the Niobrara and other deep formations in the southern Powder River Basin for shale oil potential. The rig is owned by Canadian-based Trinidad Drilling (TSX:TDG).

“At 11:05 am April 27 OGCC field inspector reported that pumping of drilling mud continues into the Combs Ranch well and that the natural gas venting to the atmosphere as ceased, approximately 68 hours after the loss of well control and venting of natural gas occurred,” commission supervisor Tom Doll said in a prepared statement this morning. ” I will get another report before 2:00 pm today confirming the time venting ceased and the duration.  It is expected by then that the well capacity should be filled with drilling mud.”

No workers were injured in Tuesday’s blowout, according to company officials. The incident occurred at about 4 p.m. Tuesday as a crew was installing steel casing. Venting occurred at the mouth of the well below the rig. According to Chesapeake, the well also spewed oil-based drilling mud, which is mostly contained on location.

Well control specialists Boots & Coots (a division of Halliburton) was on location and prepared to implement plugging operations on Thursday morning, but had to delay the operation due to variable wind conditions that day, Chesapeake spokeswoman Kelsey Campbell told WyoFile. No local fire crews are on hand, said Converse County Emergency Management coordinator Russ Dalgarn, because Boots & Coots is prepared to fight a fire if there is an ignition.

Approximately 50 of the 70 residents living within a 2.5 mile radius of the Chesapeake well had voluntarily evacuated their homes on Tuesday evening.

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Home rule goes up against the fracking industry – and the political system

By: danps Saturday April 21, 2012 3:50 am
FireDogLake.com

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

The fight against fracking in Ohio comes at a time when the state is approving new wells at a rapid pace. Local activists are organizing in an environment where the ground is constantly shifting under their feet – sometimes literally.

Anti-fracking activism has been influenced by developments both inside the state and beyond. At a recent public anti-fracking meeting a representative from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) described the experience of activists in western Pennsylvania several years ago.

Residents there began seeing lots of drilling sites, processing plants and other fracking infrastructure pop up. Neighborhood opposition responded through the regulatory process. Drillers needed permits, so locals educated themselves on permit writing. They enjoyed some early victories as improperly written permits were thrown out.

The wins were only temporary though. Drillers came back weeks or months later with rewritten permits that fixed the problems in the earlier ones. The new permits passed regulatory muster and the frackers moved in. At one point counsel for the companies jokingly thanked a CELDF representative for its help in putting together a bulletproof permit-writing process. As you might imagine, this was not the intended outcome.

The regulatory process may not be a suitable one for anti-fracking activists for other reasons as well. For one, regulations are not ultimately about protecting citizens; they are about legalizing harm. Regulation on, say, arsenic in drinking water is not based on the maximum amount that humans may safely consume, but on the maximum amount the industry can get legislators to allow. If they allow an amount that is unhealthy for humans or animals, those who suffer as a result have no legal recourse. The harm was permitted.

If you do not want the fracking to occur at all – if you think it is too unregulated, too opaque, and generally too hazardous – then fighting over regulation is a sucker’s game. You are not fighting over whether or not your community will expose itself to the tender mercies of the oil and gas industry, but over how much damage the industry will be allowed to do to it; and since the oil and gas industry is flooding the statehouse with lobbyists how do you think that fight will go?

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WE ARE CALLED FRACTIVISTS! DON'T FORGET IT.

New U.S. Fracking Emission Rules Unclear on Climate Impacts

Regulating emissions of methane from fracking to free natural gas will have important co-benefits in slowing climate change

By Tiffany Stecker and ClimateWire  | April 19, 2012 |4

U.S. EPA's pollution-cutting oil and gas rule will help cut emissions of a potent greenhouse gas without regulating it directly, say clean air advocates.

EPA released a final rule yesterday that requires new hydraulically fractured gas wells to use technology that will cut toxic substances and smog-forming pollution by 2015. As a co-benefit, the upgrades will also reduce methane -- a greenhouse gas with 30 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide -- by up to 1.7 million tons, said EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation Gina McCarthy.

When it comes to cutting methane emissions from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, wells, "[EPA] isn't aware of any other technologies that are effective as this rulemaking," McCarthy said.

"The standards are practical, flexible, affordable and achievable," she said.

The New Source Performance Standards will mandate that all new wells install "green" completions, technology that separates gas from liquid hydrocarbons from the flowback of wells to cut pollution. Well operators could also flare, or burn, waste gas instead of releasing it directly into the atmosphere.

But because methane is only a co-benefit, it is not an enforceable requirement, said Stuart Ross, communications director for the Clean Air Task Force.

"We know there's a lot more that can be done for methane," he said.

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Leak coats 10 acres near South Heart in oil mist

Dickinson Press
April 13,2012

SOUTH HEART — As employees of a Denver-based drilling company vigorously sprayed down oil-glazed equipment on a rig northwest of South Heart on Thursday, a concerned landowner sat quietly in a nearby pick-up and gazed at the discolored chunk of his land blanketed by an oil spill that took place the previous afternoon.

Mike O’Bach of South Heart said he was told a plug or gasket failed at approximately 2 p.m. Wednesday, causing pressurized oil to shoot out from the rig and become airborne. He believes strong winds then carried oil mist over to his fields.

O’Bach added that he is worried the spill could have harmful effects on the surrounding environment because oil settled on both sides of 34th Street, near a dam and wetlands.

“I’m kind of concerned there about water contamination,” O’Bach said. “This will eventually drain into the Heart River.”

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Decision to store radioactive, explosive materials in Windsor area delayed - fracking?

April 9, 2012
Ashley Keesis-Wood
Coloradoan

A company has plans to store radioactive and explosive materials in the Windsor area.

However, that will not happen until the summer at the earliest due to action taken late last week by the Windsor Planning Commission.

The planning commission tabled a request from Allied Wireline Services to allow the storage of radioactive and explosive materials in the Highlands Industrial Park, 7250 Greenridge Road, during last Thursday's meeting.

The planning commission will next address the issue either at the end of June or at the beginning of July.

The item appeared on the Windsor Town Board's agenda for last Monday night, but was not addressed at the meeting because the planning commission has not issued a recommendation.

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Natural gas glut means drilling boom must slow - when pigs fly

By Jonathan Fahey/
 AP Energy Writer | Associated Press /
4/08/2012

Natural gas producers are being forced to scale back as prices fall, storage caverns fill up

NEW YORK (AP) -- The U.S. natural gas market is bursting at the seams.

So much natural gas is being produced that soon there may be nowhere left to put the country's swelling surplus. After years of explosive growth, natural gas producers are retrenching.

The underground salt caverns, depleted oil fields and aquifers that store natural gas are rapidly filling up after a balmy winter depressed demand for home heating.

The glut has benefited businesses and homeowners that use natural gas. But with natural gas prices at a 10-year low — and falling — companies that produce the fuel are becoming victims of their drilling successes. Their stock prices are falling in anticipation of declining profits and scaled-back growth plans.

Some of the nation's biggest natural gas producers, including Chesapeake Energy, ConocoPhillips and Encana Corp., have announced plans to slow down.

"They've gotten way ahead of themselves, and winter got way ahead of them too," says Jen Snyder, head of North American gas for the research firm Wood Mackenzie. "There hasn't been enough demand to use up all the supply being pushed into the market."

So far, efforts to limit production have barely made a dent. Unless the pace of production declines sharply or demand picks up significantly this summer, analysts say the nation's storage facilities could reach their limits by fall.

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So where's the cheap prices the consumer pays? They don't exist @$$holes! Export, export export...

What stinks? Bizarre trash collects near oil patch [urine bottles litter the sides of the road]

Bismarck Tribune

March 26, 2012

James MacPHERSON

Associated Press - A discarded bottle filled with urine 

lays on the side of Highway 85 near Williston, N.D.,

 on March 23. Litter has become an escalating problem

 as the rush to tap vast caches of crude escalates in 

North Dakota. As the number of trucks coming to the 

oil mecca increases, so does the trash

TIOGA, N.D. — Along the wide-open expanses and rolling prairie of western North Dakota surrounding the state’s booming oil patch, all sorts of bizarre litter can be found clogging the once picturesque roadside: Derelict hardhats, single boots, buckets, pallets, pieces of machinery, shredded semi tires, oily clothing, cigarette butts.

The worst? Plastic jugs of urine pitched out windows as scores of truckers pass through oil country.

Litter has become an escalating problem as the rush to tap vast caches of crude escalates in North Dakota. As the number of trucks coming to the oil mecca increases, so does the trash. Some of the industrial rubbish blows in from unsecured truckloads, but for many, the most frustrating trash is the gallons of discarded urine.

The problem has local leaders and rural residents scratching their heads. There’s no money to build new rest stops, and once-eager community volunteers are less willing to pick up junk now because they don’t want to handle human waste. So little has been done to address the problem, save for upgrading mowing tractors with cabs to protect operators from getting sprayed with urine when the jugs are hit by a wheel or blade.

“I don’t know if it can be solved other than by people having some respect, because right now the countryside is being taken for granted,” 

said Tioga Mayor Nathan Germundson. 

“It’s a growing problem and it’s sad.”

The jugs are known around these parts as “trucker bombs,” and they freckle the countryside. They show up in a variety of containers: antifreeze jugs, beverage bottles or milk cartons, and are usually hurled by drivers too hurried or weak-bladdered to stop and relieve themselves politely.

Of course, there’s a reason they’re thrown in the first place. There are only three rest stops along the hundreds of miles of highway in western North Dakota, and all are well outside the busiest areas of the state’s oil patch. Until there are more truck stops or rest areas on the much-traveled route, the jugs will probably still be tossed by truckers, said Tom Balzer, executive vice president of the North Dakota Motor Carriers Association.

“It is a huge issue, but one of the biggest problems is there isn’t lot of places for these guys stop to properly dispose of the receptacles,” Balzer said. “I don’t know that it’s a case of being disrespectful but of the unbelievable growth out there.”

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