What The Frack Is Happening In Youngstown?
Jan 6th, 2012 | 8 responses
To say that fracking has had unintended consequences would be a misnomer. There have been warnings from the outset of the scramble to extract natural gas from shale formations using environmentally unsafe methods, but the case of Youngstown, Ohio is special.
On New Years Eve, the central Ohio city had its 11th earthquake since St. Patrick’s Day — a magnitude 4.0 on the Richter Scale, the highest to date. That would not be unusual except that Youngstown has never had an earthquake in its recorded history.
The quakes, which have shaken buildings but not caused any perceptible damage, are being attributed to fracking operations in the downtown area.
While fracking offers a lucrative way for governors and mayors to raise money, it has come under increasing scrutiny because of environmental and health concerns despite repeated assurances from petroleum companies that it is safe.
Fracking has been a financial boost for the Allegheny region. The Marcellus Shale formation, which stretches from western New York state through Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, has set off a regional jobs bonanza.
The Youngstown fracking operations have been suspended while the source of the quakes is investigated. And the city presumably mulls whether repeated earthquakes are a way to attract new businesses.
8 Responses to “What The Frack Is Happening In Youngstown?”
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7393916n
In watching this news clip, it appears the wells are not fracking wells, but are wells used to dispose of water from wells from fracking operations in Penn.
Looks like we have another case of contaminated materials generated by the production of energy the same as that from Nuclear plants. Our problem right now is technology is moving much faster than governmental abilities to stay ahead of technology, thus allowing situations like this to develop. The government reacts instead of acts. Could it be time to hire some people like companies do to look at futuristic alternatives and get rid of some lifers who have fulfilled the Peter Principle, reached their levels of incompetence and outstayed their usefullness to their federal employer?
We spend billions on government programs and wonder where it goes, while we have programs that could be based on the rural electification programs during the 30′s and 40′s that would provide for generation lines to move electricity from wind farms in the rural midwest to population centers around the country. How can it be that we have the technology to generate power from proven safe renewable sources, but lack the political leadership to spend money for the infrastructure to build generation lines while wasting money on comapnies line Solyndra.
And if you say programs have been blocked by Republicans in congress to build generation lines from the midwest to current distribution points, please provide a source as I have heard nothing on any news program or talk show that indicates anyone has suggested supporting wind farms in the midwest. I think that is why Pickens has abandoned his plans due to the lack of a way to distribute the electricity. He has the turbines ready to go, but no support to build geneation lines that are needed.
My point: We have new technologies based on proven practices to provide for the safe wants and needs of America. We lack the leadership to provide for those technologies, always falling back on
years-old tecnologies that do not provide safely for those needs and wants.
RP:
Thank you for the clarification. I have rewritten the photo caption.
Your points are excellent, especially when it comes to solar. While Obama shares some of the blame in not promoting it more aggressively with government subsidies, he has been harshly criticized for the subsidies he has provided.
The critics, of course, have ties to fossil fuel industries, and the homegrown solar industry is shrinking with China and West Germany picking up the slack.
Fracking will prove to be a disaster in the long run as community after community sees the energy companies suck dry shale deposits, leaving local roads in parlous condition, groundwater contaminated and myriad health issues.
Is it worth all that for a few million lousy barrels more of oil? Apparently so.
Ouch, my dad used to live there just a few years ago.
A little transparency would be helpful here. I know that fracking companies were caught using diesel fuel, which is patently illegal, but the law protects them from revealing their fluid, even to government agencies.
It would seem that judicial review or an accountable insurance company could fill in the gap, if the “secret brew” really had to be kept secret.
Prof:
I happen to live a couple of miles from the upper Delaware River, which is the largest undammed river east of the Mississippi and remains in relatively pristine condition.
Millions of people in New York City, Philadelphia and along the river rely on it for their drinking water and hundreds of thousands of people fish it each year, including from the banks of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, which is the most visited such area in the U.S.
Yet I fear — deeply fear — that there will be a massive blowout from fracking in the footprint of the river’s many tributaries and a river that I love will be destroyed.
As I noted in my response to RP, it apparently is worth running the risk of damaging this great natural resource for a few million barrels of oil.
This is indeed a fracking mess. We need NG, it is a VERY valuable and plentiful source of energy and diminishes our need for foreign oil and minimizes the inefficient stuff like coal, solar and wind, but not nuclear (which has to be the eventual winner, like it or not, ask any Frenchman), with all their subsidies.
This should be a federal problem to investigate, evaluate, regulate and clean up.
Duck, yes, we need NG (safe – smaller footprint ND) but wind and solar are becoming more and more efficient as time goes on. About an hour north of me, where I spent much time as a kid on my grandparents farm near Breckenridge, MI there is now quite an extensive wind farm (133 – 400-foot wind turbines – 467 megawatts) almost ready to go online. This is an area where traditional agriculture has had a tough row to hoe for some quite awhile now. Wind farming looks like a good opportunity for many of these people. These folks aren’t exactly tree-huggers either, but they recognize a good thing when they see it.
Fracking was specifically excluded from the 2005 Safe Drinking Water Act thanks to the most active Vice President in recent history.
From MediaMatters.
[The energy bill, called the Energy Policy Act of 2005, originated from a 2001 White House energy plan, developed by a task force led by Vice President Dick Cheney, who headed Halliburton at the time of the Alabama ruling. The Los Angeles Times reported in 2004 that Cheney's office was involved in discussions about how fracturing should be portrayed in the 2001 report and that it resisted EPA's attempts to include concerns about its effects on the environment. [Greenwire, 2/24/11]
•2005 Law: Term “Underground Injection” Excludes Fluids “Pursuant To Hydraulic Fracturing Operations.” From the 2005 Energy Policy Act:
SEC. 322. HYDRAULIC FRACTURING.
Paragraph (1) of section 1421(d) of the Safe Drinking Water Act (42 U.S.C. 300h(d)) is amended to read as follows:
“(1) Underground injection.–The term `underground injection’–
“(A) means the subsurface emplacement of fluids by well injection; and
“(B) excludes–
“(i) the underground injection of natural gas for purposes of storage; and
“(ii) the underground injection of fluids or propping agents (other than diesel fuels) pursuant to hydraulic fracturing operations related to oil, gas, or geothermal production activities.” [Energy Policy Act of 2005, Section 322]]
http://mediamatters.org/research/201106280018
I know of no authorative report that earthquakes are caused by fracking, but they are still studying the question.
The question of polluted water is more easily determined and the SDWA needs to be revised immediately.
Shame on Cheney and others. Water is probably our biggest problem going down the road. Good thing Obama is on top of that problem.