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Unfair share: How oil and gas drillers avoid paying royalties
Posted by Pro Publica: Abrahm Lustgarten on August 13th, 2013
Pro Publica: Don Feusner ran dairy cattle on his 370-acre slice of northern Pennsylvania until he could no longer turn a profit by farming. Then, at age 60, he sold all but a few Angus and aimed for a comfortable retirement on money from drilling his land for natural gas instead.
It seemed promising. Two wells drilled on his lease hit as sweet a spot as the Marcellus shale could offer -- tens of millions of cubic feet of natural gas gushed forth. Last December, he received a check for $8,506 for a month`s...
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US EPA’s abandoned Wyoming fracking study: One retreat too many
Posted by Pro Publica: Abrahm Lustgarten on July 3rd, 2013
Pro Publica: When the Environmental Protection Agency abruptly retreated on its multimillion-dollar investigation into water contamination in a central Wyoming natural gas field last month, it shocked environmentalists and energy industry supporters alike.
In 2011, the agency had issued a blockbuster draft report saying that the controversial practice of fracking was to blame for the pollution of an aquifer deep below the town of Pavillion, Wy. -- the first time such a claim had been based on a scientific...