West Virginia's First Oil and Gas Explosion of the New Year in Tyler County at Jay-Bee's Lisby Pad Site

This report compiled from Internet Reports and Pictures

Before the explosion

West Virginia rang in the New Year with a bang thanks to the Oil and Gas Industry. Sadly, because of the rush to drill and lack of proper oversight we can expect to hear of these things pretty frequently. Remember that here in West Virginia only about 6% of the proposed wells have been drilled so far .... and look at all the incidents and injuries those few wells have brought us.

Gas Price Increases Prompting EQT to revive Drilling Outside of their Marcellus Holdings

Before and afternoon rally, EQT stock price dropped about $4 a share when it first announced it was going to restart drilling operations 9utside of it's primasry Marcellus regions. They have announced plans to increase their 2014 capital spending to $2.4 billion. $180 Million of that will go toward resuming drilling at the 120 Huron Shale wells in Kentucky that were stalled in 2012 as natural gas retail prices started to fall.

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An Inside Look at “Food & Water Watch

Thoughts on a Food and Water Watch Conference Call

Commentary by S. Tom Bond, Retired Chemistry Professor and Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

I was privileged to join a conference call conducted by the Food and Water Watch (FWW) on the 12th of November.  FWW is a non-governmental organization with members all over the U. S.  concerned with consumer food rights.  They devote much of their attention to fracking because of its potential effects on food and rural people.

More on the new Parkersburg West Virginia Cracker Plant

Article by S. Tom Bond
Retired Chemistry Professor and Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

Sabic  is a Saudi Arabian company that specializes in high quality plastics. It has been faced with financial difficulty and is expected to transfer its  business  to Illinois and Mississippi.  It had previously announced plans to close in 2015.    While the salaries were good, the work conditions were sub-par.  Plans are that the “cracker’ plant will replace its current plant seven miles from downtown Parkersburg in what is called Washington Bottom.

WV Lawmakers Get To Hear Both Sides Of The GreenHunter Fracking Water Recycling Plant Debate

From an article by Casey Junkins, Wheeling Intelligencer, November 20, 2013

Ben Stout took his fight against the GreenHunter Water natural gas frack water recycling plant to Charleston on Tuesday, as he testified to the West Virginia Joint Legislative Oversight Commission on State Water Resources.

On the other side of the debate, GreenHunter Vice President of Operations Rick Zickefoose also spoke before the special committee of the state Legislature. He took the place of John Jack, vice president of Business Development for GreenHunter, who had been on the commission's schedule.

Hydraulic Fracturing Research Advisory Panel holds Public Teleconference

The EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) released a Federal Register Notice announcing a public teleconference of the Hydraulic Fracturing Research Advisory Panel. The Panel will receive written and oral comments from the public on new and emerging information related to hydraulic fracturing and drinking water resources. The teleconference is scheduled for Wednesday, November 20, 2013 from 12:00-5:00pm EST. To participate please email Ed Hanlon at hanlon.edward@epa.gov and see the Federal Register Notice for more information.

Fracking Boom Gives Banks Mortgage Headaches

From an article in American Banker by Andy Peters

An East Coast oil boom has promised potential riches to lucky landowners. But the oil rush may cause big headaches for some unlucky banks.

At least three institutions — Tompkins Financial (TMP) in Ithaca, N.Y., Spain's Santander Bank and State Employees' Credit Union in Raleigh, N.C. — are refusing to make mortgages on land where oil or gas rights have been sold to an energy company.

An Excellent Unbiased Animated Display of the Fracking Process

"Deadly" Dave Welsh's Anti Fracking Song

Gas Leasing Still Hot in Upper Ohio Valley

From Article By Casey Junkins, Wheeling Intelligencer

North, south, east and west, natural gas abstractors continue flooding courthouses throughout the Upper Ohio Valley in the effort to lock up land for Utica and Marcellus shale drilling.

A trip to the Belmont County Recorder’s Office last week found at least 25 abstractors inside the office, with some even working upstairs on the mezzanine level. Though hectic, the activity seems orderly.

The rush continues due to the impressive amounts of oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids that companies such as Chesapeake Energy, Chevron, Gulfport Energy, Antero Resources, Magnum Hunter, Hess Corp. and others are pumping throughout the area.

Fracking Activist Silenced for Doing EPA's Work

Vera Scroggins, a retired real estate agent and nurse's aide, was in Common Pleas Court for Susquehanna County, Pa., to explain why a temporary injunction should not be issued against her.

Before her were four lawyers and several employees of Cabot Gas and Oil, who accused her of trespassing and causing irreparable harm to the company that had almost $1 billion in revenue in 2012. They didn't want her on their property they owned or leased in the Marcellus Shale.

Americans Deserve a Better Fracking Debate (Op-Ed)

Gretchen Goldman is an analyst in the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Goldman holds a PhD in environmental engineering and her current work looks at political and corporate interference in science policy. She contributed this article to:  LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Last month, a Colorado man braved the floods to take pictures of swamped oil and gas drilling sites. Why did he put himself in danger? He didn't trust the companies that operate the sites — or the media — to document the damage at the state's oil and gas facilities. His actions are symptomatic of a broader problem with the national debate over fracking. Citizens are hungry for reliable information about new unconventional oil and gas development, but they aren't receiving it. Interference in the science, weak or non-existent laws and misinformation from industry and activists have clouded the conversation.

Fracking Methane Leakage Study Financed by Gas Industry with EDF is Deeply Flawed

Numerous Problems Are Identified With How Study Was Conducted in Order to Achieve Results Inconsistent with Findings of Independent Researchers at Diverse Drilling Sites

Press Release from PSE Group, September 17, 2013

WASHINGTON, D.C.  — Anthony Ingraffea, Ph.D., Dwight C. Baum professor of engineering, Cornell University, and president, Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers for Healthy Energy (PSE), and Seth B. Shonkoff, PhD, MPH, executive director, Physicians, Scientists, & Engineers for Healthy Energy, and environmental researcher, University of California, Berkeley, issued the following statement today:

 ”The new gas industry/Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) study released Monday on methane gas leakage appears to be fatally flawed.

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Fracking Angst

Earth Sciences - What We Are Learning From Shale Drilling

Analysis by S. Tom Bond
Retired Chemistry Professor and Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

Geologists and petroleum engineers are learning that the earth is really much more complicated than the simple conceptual diagrams that are in their textbooks and that they put out to the companies that want to drill.  Those diagrams are a bit like a layer cake.  They appear to have uniform thickness and consist of uniform, homogeneous, single component layers. 

However, buried landscapes, compression and extension, lateral thrusts, percolating waters of various compositions, often highly corrosive or oxidizing, radioactivity, an immense amount of detail which changes unpredictably in a few yards vertically or a few tens of yards horizontally are left out.

Letter to the Editor at Pocono (Pa) Record - My Turn: Let headlines tell fracking's true, bad, story

By MARK LICHTY

August 2013

A Pocono Record news item on July 29 carried the headline, "Experts: Bad PR has hurt fracking industry." The headline missed the real news in the story, which was that a former Shell president, John Hofmeister, admitted that, "everybody knows that some wells go bad."

This is a huge admission on the part of the gas industry. Fracking activists have known this for years, but for reasons explained below, the gas industry has done everything it can to hide this from the public.

The more appropriate headline would have been "After years of denial, gas industry president admits fracking has contaminated wells." Headlines are important. They should convey the essence of that article. The headline in the Record not only missed the critical news, but barely even drew one into the article.

Ocean Fracking Should Be No Surprise

Ocean Fracking Should Be No Surprise (via LA Progressive)

The California Coastal Commission, under intense pressure from legislators and environmental activists, pledged Thursday, August 15 at its meeting in Santa Cruz to investigate reports of fracking (hydraulic fracturing) for oil in ocean waters in the…

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MarkWest Cites ‘Erosion And Run-Off’ in Fish Kill

By CASEY JUNKINS - Staff Writer , The Intelligencer

A "major landslide" caused a MarkWest Energy pipeline in Wetzel County to leak, the company said Wednesday. The leak spilled natural gas liquids into Rocky Run, leading to a fish kill.

MarkWest Energy officials said in a statement they are repairing the 10-inch, 27-mile pipeline that connects natural gas processing facilities in Marshall and Wetzel counties. "Initial indications are that the landslide originated from significant erosion and run-off from recent heavy rainfall and impacted the right-of-way," said MarkWest spokesman Robert McHale, regarding the rupture of the line that connects the company's Mobley and Majorsville sites. "No one was injured." The leak occurred last week.

Antero Ohio River pipeline to cost $525M and produce 4.8 million gallons of water a day

Planned 80-mile line would supply company wells in Ritchie County

Read Full Story Here

Energy Industry Accused of Suppressing Fracking Dangers

by Jared Metzker

Advertising and lobbying are deployed by the energy companies to confuse the public, and meanwhile anyone who has suffered from their practices gets a muzzle.

New signs have emerged in recent days which indicate that extreme measures are being taken in order to suppress evidence of the pernicious effects of the energy extraction method known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”.

At the beginning of this month, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette revealed that, in 2011, a Pennsylvania family reached an unprecedented settlement with an energy company fracking near their property. It included gag orders on the family’s two children, ages seven and 10 at the time of the settlement, which prohibit them from, at any point in their lives, discussing their experiences living near a fracking site.