Tar Sands - Obama is back, can you call now?

Hey- This is breaking news. President Obama just got back from his vacation and was greeted by over 140 people sitting in at the White House this morning to protest the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. This is by far the biggest day of the Tar Sands Action, and the biggest sit-in at the White House in memory. The group includes Dr. James Hansen, NASA's most important climate scientist, and Phil Radford, the Executive Director of Greenpeace, plus dozens of faith leaders from every possible religious tradition. They're still out there now, sitting in, and I think we should let our President know that they're not alone. If we reach out to him now, he'll know that there is a movement behind them, and that will make us much harder to ignore. Can you call the White House and tell President Obama to stand with us and oppose the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline? The White House: 202-456-1111 Then, report your call by clicking here: http://www.tarsandsaction.org/report-call/ Thanks for everything you're doing to make this action a success.

The Human Cost of Energy

Scientific American
Fossil fuels exact the biggest toll in terms of lives lost
August 31, 2011

Deadly accidents involving nuclear reactors, oil rigs and coal mines in recent months remind us that all forms of energy generation carry risks. In developed countries, coal is the most hazardous (bottom left), according to the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, which studied more than 1,800 accidents worldwide over nearly 30 years. For coal, mining tends to be the most dangerous step; for oil and gas, most accidents occur during distribution; and for nuclear, generating plants are on the hot seat (orange bars).

Developing nations tend to have higher fatality rates, experts say (although reporting is less comprehensive, so no numbers are shown). “Regulations may be less strict,” explains Peter Burgherr, head of technology assessment at the energy systems analysis laboratory at the institute. “Working conditions are also poorer,” and less mechanization means more people are doing manual labor in harm’s way.

The lion’s share of human costs, however, comes not from accidents but from pollution, which makes fossilfuels the most dangerous form of energy generation (below). As Burgherr notes, “People are often not aware of what is happening to them in daily life.”

— Mark Fischetti

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» Web Exclusive: Read more about ‘The Health Care Burden of Fossil Fuels’

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Do you know who is visiting your fracking website? We take visitors masks off at WTFrack.org

It is quite interesting to see the different companies that visit WTFrack.org. Below, we have listed a few of  the many service providers (company names, educational facilities and government agencies) that have recently paid a visit to WTFrack.org.   The most interesting was from the executive office of the president -Washington, DC. Any ideas why?

There is certainly a trend for teams of lawyers to pay us a visit. Are they waiting for a class action lawsuit or are they representing the oil and gas industry?

We remember being at a water review hearing at the State Capitol in Denver, Colorado in early August where one self identified lawyer said to another: "Maybe we'll get some real work here." Maybe.

And what would an oil & gas expose' blog site be without it's number one clientele, the oil and gas industry? They are happily listed en masse here as well.

Are people realizing that fracking is a rogue industry? Are they nervous because we have a right to speak and use the press for civil public service? The oil and gas industry is unregulated and exempt from the laws that keep humans and the environment safe. That's not so civil is it?  Who doesn't like clean air, safe and clean water? Who wants hundreds of thousands of future fracking super fund sites all across the United States? Who wants contaminated soils?

On another note, we sadly predict that deep injection wells, (deep underground wells where 'toxic' produced water is pumped by the hundreds of millions of gallons and stored) will someday cause a massive water source contamination from contaminant source migration where many people could very well be subject to the ills of today's exemptions. Why is the State of Colorado allowing this? Why would any state allow this to potentially happen? Where is sound science?

Draw your own conclusions with the visitor data below.

WTFrack.org   Visitor SP	Sector
highland capital management	banking
national city corporation	banking
national city corporation	banking
executive office of the President	DC gov
boston university	ed
columbia university	ed
duke university	ed
fairmont state university	ed
lasalle university	ed
minnesota state colleges and universities	ed
pennsylvania state university	ed
university of colorado	ed
university of colorado denver	ed
university of hawaii	ed
university of missouri - research and education	ed
university of missouri-columbia	ed
university of utah	ed
university of california at berkeley	ed
air liquide america	energy
california energy commission	energy
chesapeake appalachia llc	energy
conocophillips company	energy
el paso natural gas co	energy
exxon mobil corporation	energy
gfi east	energy
halliburton company	energy
houston energy	energy
pg&e	energy
sanjel corporation	energy
southeast colorado power association	energy
southwestern energy	energy
wisconsin elec. power	energy
anadarko petroleum corporation	energy
cabot oil gas	energy
hess corporation	energy
washington water power	energy
c2 (c squared) systems llc	engineering
copa-office of attorney genera	gov
department of veterans affairs	gov
state of colorado general government computer	gov
u.s. department of state	gov
u.s. environmental protection agency	gov
u.s. house of representatives	gov
wyoming.com	gov
national bureau of economic research	gov
new york state health department	health
baker hughes inteq	law
borton lawson	law
finnegan henderson farabow garrett & dunner	law
jones day reavis & pogue	law
kaplan kirsch & rockwell	law
kurzman karelsen frank	law
new york state office of the attorney general	law
nixon peabody llp	law
wetiz and luxenberg	law
apco worldwide (dc hq)	law
charleston newspapers	media
the news corporation	media
cbs corporation	media
merck and co. inc.	pharma
ford motor company	prod
caldwell watson	real estate
lamont doherty geological observatory	science
texas commission on environmental quality	science/gov
rbs securities inc.	securities

REVISIT - Natural-Gas Fracking Rules Considered by U.S. for Federal Lands

BLOOMBERG.COM
Jim Snyder and Katarzyna Klimasinska -
Aug 18, 2011 12:37 PM MT


The U.S. is weighing whether to impose new rules on hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas on public lands.

Companies such as Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC) of The Woodlands, Texas, and Treasure Resources Inc. of Windsor,Colorado, may be required to disclose chemicals used in the drilling and adopt well-integrity standards as part of the permit process, Robert Abbey, director of the Bureau of Land Management, said in an interview today in Bloomberg’s Washington office.

“We have the authority to move forward with our own rule-making to require such a disclosure and other best-management practices that we deem are feasible and appropriate,” Abbey said. Such regulations are being “seriously entertained,” he said.

In fracturing, or fracking, companies inject water, sand and chemicals under high pressure thousands of feet underground to break up shale-rock formations and release the gas trapped there. The technique is used for more than 90 percent of wells drilled on public lands, Abbey said.

Environmentalists and local officials have said the technique can pollute water resources.

Natural-gas production on federal lands rose 6.5 percent to 2.97 trillion cubic feet, or 14 percent of U.S. production, last year, according to the agency’s website.

Abbey said the bureau had no evidence that fracking has“adversely affected groundwater.”

Disclosure, Best Practices

 

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IMAGE - Earthen 'unlined' produced water pit is fed by 15 operators and evaporates +/- 7.2 million gallons per day - Huerfano County, Colorado

The information below depicts an 'Earthen Evaporation/Percolation Pit', or 'unlined pit' for produced water from the oil and gas industry (fracking). The pit is located in Huerfano County, Colorado.  It appears that this open pit evaporates approximately 7.2 million gallons of produced water daily with the pit holding approximately 4.1 million gallons at any given time. The information below also details that approximately fifteen separate operator sites pipeline their produced water in to this pit.

Furthermore, we find that this 'unlined' produced water pit has a groundwater table at a shallow depth of 50' as reported on COGCC's documents below. What are the probabilities that groundwater contamination would occur with an actively operating unlined earthen produced water pit just above it.  Seepage might be a possible issue and storm water runoff/snow melt is another concern we have.  Is it likely that the produced water from evaporation and natural seepage might contaminate the groundwater?

What are the hydrological conditions of this area to prove an 'Earthen Pit' is a sound solution? We think the state should review the liability at this site and employ its mission statement.

According to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC’s) mission statement below, it appears that they may be failing.


MISSION STATEMENT
The mission of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) is to foster the responsible development of Colorado's oil and gas natural resources.

Responsible development results in:

The efficient exploration and production of oil and gas resources in a manner consistent with the protection of public health, safety and welfare

The prevention of waste
The protection of mineral owners' correlative rights

The prevention and mitigation of adverse environmental impacts

Facility ID:	113489	Facility Name/No:	LIVELY EVAP. TANK 2 /
Operator Name:	PETROGLYPH ENERGY INC	Operator Number:	8667
County:	HUERFANO - #055	Location:	SESW 35 28S 67W
Field:	PURGATOIRE RIVER -# 70830	Lat/Long:	37.561805/-104.860752
Pit Use:	PRODUCTION	Offsite Disposal:	N/A

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