NY high court rejects Dryden fracking suit revival
New York’s highest court rejected an attempt to revive the fight against the Town of Dryden and its fracking ban.
In a precedent-setting decision last June, the Court of Appeals ruled 5-2 that communities have the right to use local land-use authority to prohibit oil and gas operations within their borders.
On Thursday, the court denied a motion by the trustee for bankrupt Norse Energy to re-argue its case against the Town of Dryden.
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More New Yorkers Oppose Fracking: Poll
A new poll conducted by the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental activist group, shows 56 percent of New Yorkers oppose fracking in the state. The survey of 802 New Yorkers was conducted by a third-party research firm in late September.
A similar survey by Quinnipiac University in mid-August found that only 48 percent of voters opposed fracking.
Anti-fracking activists have redoubled their efforts in recent weeks, following Gov. Cuomo on the campaign trail in an attempt to have him take a stance on fracking before the election, but the governor has kept a steadfast ambivalence on the subject.
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Report: New York Governor’s Office Altered And Delayed Fracking Study
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration edited and delayed a fracking study commissioned by the state, according to a review by Capital New York.
The New York news outlet reported Monday that the Cuomo administration had altered a report on the natural gas extraction technique commonly referred to as fracking. The report was commissioned in 2011 and was “going to result in a number of politically inconvenient conclusions” for the governor. A comparison of the original draft of the report, which was put together by the U.S. Geological Survey, and the final version, showed that some of the original descriptions and mentions of fracking-related health and environmental risks were “played down or removed.”
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Duke researchers explore potential dangers of fracking
With North Carolina's ban on fracking set to expire next year, Duke researchers are looking into the potential dangers of the technique.
“We sampled hundreds of homes with private drinking water wells, and found that people living near shale gas wells are more likely to have methane, ethane, and propane, the components of natural gas, in their water,” said Robert Jackson, formerly of the Nicholas School of the Environment and now a professor of environment and energy at Stanford University.
“I think there’s a perception amongst some people in Raleigh that they don’t want to hear about problems that might occur,” Jackson said. “I think the Mining and Energy Commission was designed to establish rules to help drilling come to North Carolina, not to decide whether or not drilling should come to North Carolina. That discussion never really happened.”
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Residents Harmed by Fracking Demand EPA Administrator Drink their Tainted Water
Want EPA to Reopen Investigation of Drinking Water Contamination By Fracking
WASHINGTON - Affected community members from Dimock, Pennsylvania, along with advocacy organizations, rallied outside of EPA Headquarters to demand that EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy either re-open investigations into fracking’s impact on people and the environment, or drink frack water from Pennsylvania that her agency has told residents is safe.
The action came after a year of gathering over 250,000 petitions, thousands of calls, and dozens of events asking McCarthy to meet with them, following the Los Angeles Times story that revealed the Obama Administration had shut down the EPA fracking investigation that found their drinking water contamination linked to drilling and fracking operations.
“My water is brown and smells so bad it will make you nauseous, yet EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy tells me and my neighbors that this poison is safe to drink,” said Ray Kemble, a resident from Dimock, PA who was part of the EPA’s fracking-related water investigation in 2012. “To make matters worse, Gina McCarthy is promoting more and more fracking across the country, meaning my story will be shared by millions of Americans. This has to stop.”
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Frackers are dumping toxic waste into California’s groundwater
California can officially add one more disaster to its rapidly growing list of water woes: The EPA just found that at least nine fracking sites throughout the state have been dumping billions of gallons of contaminated wastewater into its protected aquifers.
Not only do many of these aquifers supply drinking water to residents throughout the Central Valley, they’re also reaching dangerously low levels due to overuse, as many farmers rely on aquifers for irrigation and have been overpumping groundwater supplies as the drought carries on.
According to a letter sent to the EPA by the California State Water Resources Board, roughly 3 billion gallons of wastewater were illegally injected into aquifers throughout central California. The EPA ordered the report following contamination concerns after 11 fracking wastewater injection wells were shut down in July by state officials.
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Michigan landfill operator suspends receipt of low-level radioactive waste
A Van Buren Township hazardous-waste landfill operator, slated to receive up to 36 tons of low-level radioactive waste from a Pennsylvania fracking company, announced Monday that it will suspend receipt of such materials from all oil and gas operations pending a review by the state.
The announcements follow an Aug. 19 Free Press report on plans by a Pennsylvania oil and gas development company, Range Resources, to ship radioactive fracking waste to Wayne Disposal. The sludge was rejected by landfills in western Pennsylvania and its shipment to a landfill in West Virginia was halted by the state and voluntarily discontinued by the company, as West Virginia reforms its laws for handling such waste.
Ohio and West Virginia, two states with more intensive fracking activity than Michigan, have changed regulations on how to store, treat, process and dispose of radioactive oil and gas drilling wastes. Pennsylvania also doesn’t allow the materials in its landfills. Each of the states leaves it to oil and gas developers to find a disposal site. As Ohio tightened its regulations, state officials listed the Wayne Disposal site in Van Buren Township as an option for Ohio drillers.
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