The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in Colorado's New Fracking Rules

Huffington Post
Gary Wockner
Jan 2, 2012 4:05

First, the good: A few weeks ago, the State of Colorado passed the strongest rules in the United States for publicly disclosing what cancer-causing and other types chemicals are used in oil and gas fracking. In a ground-breaking and intense set of negotiations between oil and gas companies and environmentalists, frackers are now forced to publicly disclose when they are fracking and what chemicals they use in fracking.  

This disclosure gets at two very serious concerns posed by fracking: 1) when fracking pollution occurs in groundwater, in streams, or on land, the public should be able to connect that pollution back to the fracking chemicals that caused it, and 2) it will allow landowners to test their wells and groundwater prior to fracking, and then re-test after fracking to check for fracking pollution.

Importantly, the new rules substantively removed the "trade secret loophole" that was proposed in the original version of the rules that would have allowed frackers to not disclose the names of the chemicals in fracking fluids by saying those chemicals were "trade secrets." Led by attorneys from Earthjustice in Denver, the environmental community held its ground against this ridiculous exemption.

Thank you, industry leaders, Governor Hickenlooper, and environmentalists for passing these new rules. 

Now for the bad: These new rules...

Continue reading...

Oil and Gas Committee may need to regulate tempers

THE GAZETTE

January 05, 2012 8:04 PM

DANIEL CHACÓN

 



File Photo

Bernie Herpin quit oil

 and gas committee

saying he doesn't have time.

Colorado Springs’ new committee on oil and gas drilling is off to a rocky start.

City Councilman Bernie Herpin quit the Oil and Gas Committee last week, saying he didn’t have enough time to attend three-hour meetings every Thursday morning for the next five months.

“I wouldn’t be able to devote the time to the committee that it’s going to require,”

 

Herpin, who works full-time as a senior information system analyst at Schriever Air Force Base, said Thursday.

“Rather than take up a position that some other council member could fill and maybe attend occasionally, I felt it was in the best interest of the city and the committee for me not to participate as a council member,” he said. “But I will keep up, of course, with what’s going on.”

When Herpin resigned from the committee, City Councilman Tim Leigh offered to take his place.

 

 

Continue reading...

 

 

Contact Daniel Chacón: 476-1623
Twitter @danieljchacon
Facebook Daniel Chacon

CDC scientist: tests needed on gas drilling impact

The Patriot-News
AP
PennLive.com
Jan. 4, 2012

PITTSBURGH (AP) — One of the government's top scientists says much more research is needed to determine the possible impacts of shale gas drilling on human health and the environment.
"Studies should include all the ways people can be exposed, such as through air, water, soil, plants and animals," Dr. Christopher Portier wrote to The Associated Press in an email.
Portier is director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

While other federal and state regulators are already studying the impacts of gas drilling on air and water, Portier said research should also include "livestock on farmed lands consuming potentially impacted surface waters; and recreational fish from potentially impacted surface waters."
Portier made clear that the science on the issue isn't settled yet.

"We do not have enough information to say with certainty whether shale gas drilling poses a threat to public health," he wrote. "More research is needed for us to understand public health impacts from natural gas drilling and new gas drilling technologies."

He also suggested pre- and post-testing of private drinking water wells near drilling sites.
Another prominent scientist said the answers won't come quickly.

"I think it will take three to five years to sort through this," Duke University researcher Rob Jackson told AP in an email.

Jackson said that doesn't mean there isn't evidence of water contamination by drilling in some communities— Wyoming, for example, or Dimock, Pa.

"On the other hand a handful of cases of contamination is not enough to shut down an industry," he said.

Continue reading...

China Set To Frack America In Shale Deal With Devon - Yes, China will frack the U.S.

Christopher Helman
Forbes Staff
1/3/2012

Image:WTFrack.org

Showing that it isn’t worried about the upswell of angst over hydraulic fracking technology, the Chinese government, through state-controlled Sinopec, today struck a deal with Devon Energy to buy into five prospective new exploration areas in the U.S.

The deal, which includes $900 million in cash upfront and a promise of $1.6 billion in the years ahead to cover drilling and development, gives the Chinese a 33% stake in five of Devon’s fields, and a front row seat to what is effectively the second wave of development of U.S. shale assets. The areas in question include the Tuscaloosa in Louisiana, the Niobrara in Colorado, the Mississippian in Devon’s home state of Oklahoma, the Utica in Ohio and the Michigan basin.

Continue reading...

Colorado State of Mind Episode: Fracking (VIDEO)

Source: RMPBS.ORG
12/16/2011


The discussion focuses on the rules surrounding hydraulic fracturing -- or fracking. Controversy has been mounting as this kind of energy extraction hits closer to home.

Watch Fracking on PBS. See more from Colorado State of Mind.