Your Water Under Fire

If you haven't seen it, the current issue of "E: The Environmental Magazine" is devoted to the topic of gas drilling.  Articles include

• "Fracked to pieces: concerned citizen groups call fora ban as NY State draws closer to wide-scale hydraulic fracturing"
• "Pro-gas Pennsylvania: the fallout from Pennsylvania's open-fracking policies provids a cautionary tale for states considering drilling" 
• "Igniting minds: a conversation with Josh Fox, writer and director of the Emmy Award-winning Gasland"
• "All out of love: We'd never solve our climate problem if we just replaced coal with natural gas"

To read the articles, click HERE to access the latest issue online.

GASLAND picked up by HBO!

Don't worry if you didn't make tonight's showing of GASLAND in Williamsport. It's not only appearing in several other area towns in the next month (click HERE for the schedule), but HBO has picked it up as well!  You can't ask for a bigger national stage than that!  While HBO doesn't have any info on their own site yet, you can read about it HERE.  Debut is scheduled for June 21st. Keep posted!

Interview with president of Ithaca NY's Toxics Targeting

This videoclip is Amy Goodman's interview with the president of Toxics Targeting, an upstate NY based organization that has created an interactive map database documenting hazardous environmental conditions and accidents in New York State.  TT utilizes local, state & federal public records--some of which are no longer available for research due to homeland security regulations--and continuously updates a database that currently documents nearly 300,000 such sites.  While the interview is based on the particulars of the current natural gas drilling phenomenon occurring in NY, the information is largely transferable to those of us across the border in PA.  Take a moment and either view the clip or read the transcript.  By following this link, you will also find recent, related articles about the environmental issues upstate NY is currently facing due to hydraulic fracturing.

December 1st forum @ Cornell University

On Tuesday, December 1st, Cornell University's Department of Earth and Atmospheric Science, the Paleontological Research Institution, the Cornell Water Resources Institute and Cornell Cooperative Extension will host a panel discussion entitled “The Marcellus Shale:  Energy, Environment and the Public Interest.”  The forum will be hold in Uris Hall Auditorium from 4:45-6:45.


This forum is intended to inform the Cornell faculty on the broad range of energy and environmental issues that underlie the current controversy regarding extraction of shale gas from the Marcellus Formation in southern N.Y. and northern Pennsylvania. Cornell experts in geology, energy, groundwater, and public policy will be present to help answer questions regarding the potential risks and benefits associated with this national energy resource.

For more information, see shaleshock.org

Some sobering facts

• 21 of 31 states have NO regulations specific to hydraulic facturing.
• 4 states *do* have detailed regulations guiding the "fracking" process (and PA is not among them)
• 10 drilling states require that fracturing chemicals be disclosed
• 0 states require that the volume of hydraulic fracturing fluid left underground be recorded.

Sources: State Oil and Natural Gas Regulations Designed to Protect Water Resources, May 2009, U.S. Department of Energy, office of Fossil Energy, National Energy Technology Lab, and the Ground Water Protection Council

For an excellent rundown of the current issues New York state is facing in the midst of all the drilling occuring right across the border, see Buried secrets: gas drilling's environmental threat