Anti-Fracking Update

Updates: Royals and Aristocrats Seek Big Gains From Fracking in Britain

Offshore Fracking Uproar Grows in California In Wake of Truthout Report

In the three weeks since a Truthout investigation revealed that federal regulators have approved at least two hydraulic fracturing operations in federal waters of the Santa Barbara Channel since 2009, a state commission has launched an investigation into the practice, California lawmakers have demanded a federal investigation, and environmental groups discovered that fracking also has occurred in state waters.
Internal government documents released to Truthout under the Freedom of Information Act show that fracking technology has been deployed at least a dozen times in federal ocean waters, including a "frack pack" in the Santa Barbara Channel approved by federal regulators this year.
As the story reverberated through the media, environmental groups reviewed state records and FracFocus.org, an online database that allows oil and gas firms to voluntarily disclose well information, and found that fracking also has occurred at least a dozen times in state waters since 2011. In California, the first three miles of ocean off the coast fall under state jurisdiction and waters beyond are considered federal.

 
Delaware Riverkeeper Network ~

President hears, but speaks no fracking - Times Leader

SCRANTON — Republicans were talking about it. Democrats were talking about it.Maya K. van Rossum briefly shouted down thePresident

NPR: Obama Stays On Message As Protestors Attempt To Force Fracking Issue

Fracking did not make its way into President Obama's remarks on a stop in Scranton, Pa. Friday, despite drilling opponents' attempts to force the issue. A group of roughly 50 protestors chanted and held up signs outside Lackawanna College in Scranton. One

Plus, from the Peach Bottom Concerned Citizens Group

• Randy Moyer will be at our conference in York PA on Sept 7th-we have breakout workshops addressing factory farms, sewage sludge, climate change and marcellus shale https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=d8bvo2UVqRY

  

  
  

  Frack Worker Tells All - Part 1: Medical Problems

  Randy Moyer worked cleaning tanks and hauling wastewater from fracked wells in PA. After four months, his health became so bad, he could no longer work. 

Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom: Scientific American

Well water in Pennsylvania homes within a mile of fracking sites is found to be high in methane

Also from the Network yesterday ~ Lawsuit Threatened if US EPA Fails to Take Action Against New Pennsylvania Law

And a must-read: (BangorDailyNews) Jim Efstathiou Jr. and Angela Greiling Keane, Bloomberg report August 14th ~ N. Dakota fracked oil said to corrode rail tank cars, put workers at risk 

Refinery in Delaware City shipments originate in the Bakken region of North Dakota, the center of a new American oil boom. With a shortage of new pipeline capacity, oil producers have been using rail as an alternative, and in some cases it's the preferred mode.

WASHINGTON — Crude oil shipped by railroad from North Dakota is drawing fresh scrutiny from regulators concerned that the cargo is adding environmental and safety hazards, something that analysts say could raise costs. The Federal Railroad Administration is investigating whether chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing are corroding rail tank cars and increasing risks. Separately, three pipeline companies including Enbridge Inc. warned regulators that North Dakota oil with too much hydrogen sulfide, which is toxic and flammable, was reaching terminals and putting workers at risk.

Until last month, safety advocates’ chief worry was spills in derailments. After tank cars blew up July 6 on a train in Quebec, investigators in Canada are considering whether the composition of the crude, which normally doesn’t explode, may have played a role in the accident that killed 47 people. The oil was from North Dakota’s Bakken shale. “Crude historically has not been considered in the highest category of hazmat,” said Anthony Hatch, an independent analyst in New York who has tracked railroad companies for almost three decades. “The risks have been considered to be environmental, not to humans. Perhaps Bakken crude should be considered in a higher category.” The cost of added safety measures, such as tighter rail-car specifications that would make obsolete some current models, may become an issue if oil prices fall, according to Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington-based policy-analysis firm.

........Much of North Dakota’s production relies on hydraulic fracturing or fracking, a technique in which millions of gallons of chemically treated water and sand are forced underground to shatter rock and free trapped oil. Highly corrosive hydrochloric acid is widely used to extract oil in the state, according to a 2011 report from the Society of Petroleum Engineers. In a July 29 letter to the American Petroleum Institute, a Washington-based lobbying and standards-setting group for the oil and gas industry, the railway administration said it found increasing cases of damage to tanker cars’ interior surfaces. A possible cause is contamination of crude by materials used in fracking, according to the letter. “If the hydrochloric acid is carried with the oil into rail cars, corrosion can be an issue,” Andy Lipow, president of Houston-based Lipow Oil Associates, said in an email. Shippers need to know the properties of the oil to ensure that it’s transported in tankers equipped to handle the cargo, according to the rail agency’s letter. Because information provided to railroads on the properties of oil is not gathered from tests, the agency said it “can only speculate” as to the number of cars in violation of hazardous-materials regulations. Investigating whether the chemical composition of Bakken oil makes it more likely to corrode tank cars is reasonable, said Peter Goelz, a former National Transportation Safety Board managing director who’s now a senior vice president with O’Neill and Associates in Washington..........The rail industry is fighting a proposal to retrofit existing cars, saying it could cost as much as $1 billion. Shippers also must account for hydrogen sulfide, a highly flammable toxic gas that at some wells is a byproduct of oil, to properly classify oil for transport..........Enbridge won FERC’s permission to refuse delivery of any oil with hydrogen sulfide that exceeded 5 parts per million, half the minimum exposure recommended by federal regulators. In a May 5 test, Calgary-based Enbridge, which owns and operates a 970-mile pipeline from Plentywood, Mont., to Clearbrook, Minn., found levels as high as 1,200 parts per million at its Berthold terminal “that could cause death, or serious injuries,” according to the company’s FERC filing. Two other pipeline operators, Tesoro Corp. and the closely held True companies, which operates the Belle Fourche and Bridger pipelines in North Dakota, also found high levels of hydrogen sulfide in crude shipments.

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