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Natural Gas Pipeline Draws Last-Minute Protests
Posted by New York Times: Jon Hurdle on February 18th, 2013
New York Times: In a last-ditch effort to block construction of a controversial natural gas pipeline in northeastern Pennsylvania, campaigners urged an interstate regulator on Friday to review the project’s environmental impact. The 44-mile section of pipeline, the Northeast Upgrade, would become part of a longer pipeline moving natural gas extracted from the Marcellus Shale in northern Pennsylvania to a terminal in Mahwah, N.J. In a letter, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, an environmental group, urged the Delaware...
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A Clash in Pennsylvania Over Fracking and Water Tests
Posted by New York Times: Jon Hurdle on February 4th, 2013
New York Times: A war of words has broken out between environmentalists and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection over the cancellation of a meeting on the state`s testing of water from water wells near natural-gas drilling sites.
A meeting of 25 environmentally themed groups, the department’s oil and gas division and the state Department of Health`s Bureau of Laboratories had been set for Jan. 24 after the disclosure last November last year that department scientists had omitted data on some...
A Boost in Radiation Monitoring for Fracking
Posted by New York Times: Jon Hurdle on January 25th, 2013
New York Times: Pennsylvania will step up its monitoring of naturally occurring radiation levels in water, rock cuttings and drilling wastes associated with oil and gas development in a yearlong study that will be peer-reviewed, the state`s environmental agency reports.
The study will also assess radiation levels in the pipes, well casings, storage tanks, treatment systems and trucks used by the natural gas industry, which has drilled thousands of wells in the gas-rich Marcellus Shale over the last five years....
Taking a Harder Look at Fracking and Health
Posted by New York Times: Jon Hurdle on January 21st, 2013
New York Times: A coalition of academic researchers in the United States is preparing to shine a rigorous scientific light on the polarized and often emotional debate over whether fracking for natural gas is hazardous to human health.
Some five years after the controversial combination of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling in the gas-rich Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania and surrounding states got under way, a team of toxicologists from the University of Pennsylvania is leading a national effort to study...
Mending the Bird Preserves Hit by Sandy
Posted by New York Times: Jon Hurdle on January 4th, 2013
New York Times: Conservationists fear that damage in places like Reeds Beach in New Jersey left almost no sand for the spring spawning of horseshoe crabs, on whose eggs birds like the red knot, center, feed during their migration.
Conservationists are warning that swift action is needed to repair mid-Atlantic bird refuges that were badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy.
In a report issued on Thursday, researchers at the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences said...
Pennsylvania Omitted Poison Data in Water Report
Posted by New York Times: Jon Hurdle on November 3rd, 2012
New York Times: Pennsylvania officials reported incomplete test results that omitted data on some toxic metals that were found in drinking water taken from a private well near a natural gas drilling site, according to legal documents released this week. The documents were part of a lawsuit claiming that natural gas extraction through a method known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and storage of the resulting wastewater at a site in southwestern Pennsylvania has contaminated drinking water and sickened seven...