FRACKING NEWS

Despite Fracking Ban, New Yorkers Saddled with 

Radioactive Fracking Waste

New report lifts the veil on how NYS has enabled Pennsylvania to dump more than 460,000 tons of fracking waste inside our borders.

Albany – A new report from Environmental Advocates of New York sheds light on the practice of potentially radioactive out-of-state fracking waste getting dumped in New York despite Governor Cuomo’s ongoing implementation of a ban on high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

“Fracking wastes are notoriously toxic and radioactive,” said Liz Moran, water and natural resources associate, and report author. “Despite knowing the public health concerns, the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) enables New York landfills to accept Pennsylvania’s fracking waste with little oversight. If fracking isn’t safe for New Yorkers, then waste from other states’ fracking operations isn’t safe for New Yorkers either.”

Key Concerns

To date, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection reports that at least 460,000 tons of solid fracking waste and 23,000 barrels of liquid waste have been dumped in seven New York landfills. Comparatively, the DEC says the state does not accept this type of waste.

Additionally:

• In 2013, radiation detectors in Pennsylvania were triggered more than 1000 times by the same kind of fracking waste accepted by New York, signaling dangerous levels of radiation – while not a single radioactive detector was set off by New York landfills.
• Leachate (toxins from solid waste that leach into collection pools) from landfills ends up in New York’s wastewater treatment plants, none of which are capable of ridding water of radiation or other dangerous chemicals.
• The DEC has failed to implement standardized oversight, regulation or testing, and has fallen far short of the strong public health safeguards that guided the state Department of Health’s fracking review.

Read more at Environmental Advocates of New York

See also an earlier report, Fracking Waste: A Radioactive Legacy for New York? 

New - and Worrisome - Contaminants Emerge from 

Oil and Gas Wells

Researchers find alarming levels of ammonium and iodide in fracking wastewater released into Pennsylvania and West Virginia streams.

Two hazardous chemicals never before known as oil and gas industry pollutants – ammonium and iodide – are being released into Pennsylvania and West Virginia waterways from the booming energy operations of the Marcellus shale, a new study shows.

Treatment plants were never designed to handle these contaminants.

The toxic substances, which can have a devastating impact on fish, ecosystems, and potentially, human health, are extracted from geological formations along with natural gas and oil during both hydraulic fracturing and conventional drilling operations, said Duke University scientists in a study published today in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

The chemicals then are making their way into streams and rivers, both accidentally and through deliberate release from treatment plants that were never designed to handle these contaminants, the researchers said.

Read more at DailyClimate.org

New Report: Oil and Gas Industry using Flawed Research to Promote Fracking

BUFFALO, NY – The oil and gas industry is using flawed research to give the impression of a scientific consensus that fracking is safe and beneficial, according to a new report released today by the Public Accountability Initiative (PAI).

The report, titled “Frackademia in Depth,” assesses over 130 studies that the industry has put forward to help make the scientific case for fracking, analyzing them for the strength of their industry ties and their relative academic quality (whether they were peer-reviewed).

PAI found that only 14% of the studies had been subject to peer review, while nearly 76% had some degree of connection to the oil and gas industry through funders, authors, and issuers.

PAI also found that the list included reports that had been discredited and retracted by the institutions that published them, including a 2012 report from the University of Texas that an independent panel convened by the school decried as “falling short of contemporary standards of scientific work” after PAI revealed undisclosed conflicts of interest and shoddy scholarship.

The extensive list of studies analyzed in the report was originally compiled by Energy in Depth, a nationwide industry outreach effort, and used to convince legislators in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania to lease mineral rights under a county park for fracking. The list opens a telling window onto the body of fracking research that the oil and gas industry deems fit for public consumption.

“Though the industry says that the science is settled in favor fracking, their own best evidence does not support that claim,” said Robert Galbraith, a research analyst at PAI and co-author of the report.

Read the report at PublicAccountability.org

ExxonMobil slammed with $2.3 Million Fine for 

Fracking-related Water Pollution

The EPA found a roundabout way of holding natural gas drillers accountable for Clean Water Act violations.

The EPA just hit XTO Energy, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil and the nation’s largest natural gas company, with a cool $2.3 million fine for Clean Water Act violations related to its fracking activities in West Virginia.

This is big: you rarely hear about frackers being held federally accountable for polluting water supplies, thanks to Bush-era legislation commonly known as the “Halliburton Loophole.” Basically, it ensures that fracking is exempted from the portions of the Safe Drinking Water Act and Clean Water Act that would typically make it accountable to federal oversight; as such, the EPA is mostly prevented from regulating both the process and the chemicals it injects into the ground.

The EPA’s approach is a clever workaround of those restrictions. As CleanTechnica’s Tina Casey explains, the pollution targeted by the EPA wasn’t caused by fracking itself, but instead by other, ordinary violations committed by XTO: the company, it charges, dumped sand, dirt, rocks and other dirty fill materials into streams and wetlands without a permit, in violation of the Clean Water Act.

In total, the company damaged 5,300 linear feet of streams and 3.38 acres of wetland — making the $2.3 million fine comparatively large, particularly when you consider the extra $3 million it agreed to pay in restoration costs.

This isn’t the first time the EPA has pursued this roundabout policy of holding frackers accountable. Last year, it nailed fracking giant Chesapeake Energy for the same violation, resulting in a record $6.5 million settlement.

Read more at BuffaloNews.com

Professor schools UB on Shale Institute Crisis

By David Kowalski, UB CLEAR ~

"What to DO when the Devil offers you a Deal" is the provocative title of a lecture delivered by U. Illinois Professor Cary Nelson at the University at Buffalo Law School on November 5th.

Professor Nelson is an expert on academic-industry ties, having co-authored a comprehensive study, Recommended Principles & Practices to Guide Academic-Industry Relationships (13 June 2012; 268 pp.) Among the topics covered, the report emphasizes the responsibilities that come with industry funding, including the public disclosure of conflicts of interest.

Conflicts of interest in academic-industry relationships became a controversial topic at UB this year. A Shale Institute (formally named the Shale Resources and Society Institute), was unveiled at UB in April 2012 and released its first report in May 2012. Major errors committed by the authors sparked the controversy. For example, the authors did not disclose in the report their ties to the shale gas industry and how their efforts to create the report were funded. The authors' ties to the gas industry constitute a conflict of interest, and their undisclosed funding sources raise serious concern about financial conflicts of interest.

In addition to the failure to disclose conflicts of interest, the report carried a false claim of peer review, which was later retracted by UB. The report also contained substantive mistakes leading to invalid conclusions that favored the shale gas industry. A detailed analysis of the report by the Public Accountability Initiative identified serious flaws, and exposure of these and other flaws in Artvoice, blogs and letters, local news created outrage on campus and in the community, leading to the formation of UB CLEAR, the Coalition for Leading Ethically in Academic Research.

At the start of his lecture, Professor Nelson cited UB CLEAR's success in getting a conversation started in the Buffalo community, and helping get the national conversation started. He said "This is a really, important story and I think that UB CLEAR has helped give it national visibility." 

Threats to Academic Freedom
In his book, No University Is an Island, Nelson lists threats to academic freedom, including diminished or dysfunctional shared governance. 

During his lecture, Professor Nelson said "I think shared governance here at UB needs some work. Complete shared governance would have produced a more accurate relationship between the Shale Institute mission statement and its personnel."

Nelson added that the UB President follows the lowest standards on conflicts of interest available, and that it would be better to follow the highest standards. He said "Point in Case: you can not evaluate the fracking industry if they are paying you, or have paid you in the past."

In terms of the Shale Institute, he said "what was needed was disclosure of at least five years of relevant industry support." Disclosure in the report itself could be abbreviated, and supplemented through a website link included in the report.

Should the Shale Institute be shut down?
A member of the SUNY Board of Trustees stated earlier that the Shale Institute should be shut down.

Nelson said "Personally, I'd want to reconstitute it, or I'd want to identify it as a unit to promote economic relations between the university and the fracking industry, and strip away its academic identity, which I don't think it has upheld in a credible way."

He added, "So, if you want to keep something that provides a dynamic relationship with fracking, make it what it is! You know, a promotional enterprise, an ad campaign for the fracking industry, rather than something that pretends to be a vehicle for disinterested research."

"I don't think as it's presently constituted that it is fulfilling its mission. I think that you have work to do to correct that problem in the way which you see best," Nelson said. 


"Obviously, disinterested research can be done, given the subject matter," Nelson said. "And obviously given the pressure to increase exploitation of shale oil and gas in the country, there need to be university voices on the matter."

"I think the [Faculty] Senate should take an interest, if they're going to do it, in having more diversity of opinion making certain that there are multiple sites of shale industry research that are independent of one another on campus, rather than one high profile site with a particular ideological bent," Nelson said.

Commentary
I would add here that the desire to connect with industry needs to come from full-time faculty experts who are earnestly interested in performing objective research for the benefit of society and in publishing it peer-reviewed, academic journals. 

Instead, the Shale Institute's deep connections to industry arose from a UB dean (Pitman) interested in raising funds (including gas industry funds) to build a new program, a part-time UB geologist (Jacobi) who is a consultant and former employee of the gas industry, and a lobbyist/employee of the shale gas industry (Holbrook) who is a former co-worker of the UB geologist. In this setting, who better to help raise industry funds, to serve as director of the new Shale Institute, and to act as principle author of the first report than oil and gas industry consultant, John P. Martin?

Improper Administrative Defense of Shale Institute Report 
In reference to the Shale Institute's first report, Nelson said "I don't think that the Administrative defense of the report has also been, by any means, proper or appropriate." 

"One of my arguments about full FCOI [financial conflict of interest] disclosure on a public website is that an administrator can just go to the website and type in the name of the person or persons involved in the report and see what their history of funding is, on a paper or public presentation, and recognize whether some skepticism is appropriate."

"I assume with FCOI disclosure, UB would have been less likely to issue press releases celebrating [the report], or defending it in the press," Nelson said.

According to Professor Nelson, part of the advantage of FCOI disclosure is that it prevents administrators from making mistakes and being deceived by the caliber and independence of the report.

"I'm assuming that, to some degree, administrators here erred in good faith, that they were perhaps bamboozled. But by recognizing the degree of the history of involvement by the authors of the report ... they wouldn't have been willing to get behind it," he said.

An Academic Crisis and an Opportunity
Professor Nelson thinks that the local crisis around the Shale Institute is "a wake-up call that can get more energized faculty working in the [Faculty] Senate" and for the Faculty Senate to "take a more aggressive role in program oversight."

"It almost never happens without a crisis," Nelson said. He added that "UB CLEAR helped create the crisis. It helped create the knowledge base that makes people aware that a crisis has occurred."

Nelson emphasized that the weakening of the Faculty Senate and relatively passive faculties follow a national pattern, not just a local problem at UB. He said that "it accompanies a more centralized administration and a diminution of faculty role."

But Nelson sees an opportunity that could emerge from the crisis. With enough solidarity, he thinks "the [Faculty] Senate can revive itself in months." He's hopeful that the crisis produces that in order to "redress the balance of academic oversight, which the institution needs."

So what should You DO when the Devil offers you a Deal?
In reply to his own question, Professor Nelson said "You should say no. But,the history of demonic-academic collaboration suggests faculty members might need just a little help in resisting temptation."

Shale Institute Study Compromised Research Integrity

Letter to the Editor of the UB Reporter ~ 
By David Kowalski ~

In addressing the controversial UB shale institute study, Provost Zukoski stated, “It’s important to note that no concerns regarding the report have been raised by the relevant scientific community.” President Tripathi stated in a report to SUNY Chancellor Zimpher and the SUNY Trustees that “No concerns were raised by the relevant scientific community about the data used in developing the report’s conclusion.”

I am a scientist (professor emeritus, Roswell Park Cancer Institute), a UB research professor and an experienced peer reviewer. I have reviewed the study by the UB shale institute (Shale Resources and Society Institute) entitled “Environmental Impacts during Marcellus Shale Gas Drilling: Causes, Impacts, and Remedies.” My comments are below.

The authors listed academic affiliations in the study, but no industry ties. John P. Martin, institute director, owns a consulting company that produces public relations reports for oil and gas interests, and two co-authors have received past support from gas-industry groups. The authors’ gas-industry ties raise concern about conflicts of interest.

The objectivity of the study was compromised in favor of the gas industry and existing state regulations. The authors’ conclusion that major environmental events per gas well were declining in Pennsylvania was not drawn from their data. Based on the data, the rate of major environmental events actually increased by 36 percent in the period studied. This information was not displayed in the graphs shown. The increased rate of major environmental events and the fact that the study made no attempt to demonstrate a cause-and-effect relationship between state regulations and environmental events invalidates the study’s conclusions that the “odds of major environmental events are being reduced even further by enhanced regulation” (p.iii), and that “the percentage of wells resulting in a major environmental event declined significantly, an indicator that the attention of regulators was focused on the areas of greatest concern (p.30).

The authors’ conclusions on cause and effect directly contradict a statement in the results section of the study: “While difficult to conclusively illustrate causation between regulatory actions and decreases in environmental violations, the history of regulations in Pennsylvania suggests such a relationship may exist.” (p.15)

The following statement is pure speculation and not a valid conclusion: “Findings indicate that each of the underlying causes associated with these specific events could have been either entirely avoided or mitigated under New York State’s proposed regulatory framework” (p.iii and a related statement on p.30).

Scott Anderson, senior policy advisor for the Environmental Defense Fund’s Energy Program, was one of the reviewers selected by the authors. After the study’s release, he wrote: “While I was a reviewer, this does not mean that all of my suggestions were taken or that I agree with all of the report’s opinions and conclusions.” He added: “Caution should be exercised with regards to some of the conclusions.”

Later, the shale institute authors released a revised version of the study with minor changes. However, they did not correct the invalid conclusions described above. 

Originally, the authors claimed incorrectly that the study was “peer-reviewed,” giving it an aura of scientific authenticity that it did not deserve. That claim helped attract media attention to the study’s invalid conclusions, resulting in misleading newspaper headlines and reports. The “peer-reviewed” claim was retracted by UB after the press release, but the damage in the newspapers had already been done. 

At this critical time in determining policies on fracking in New York State and the nation, it is outrageous that invalid conclusions in the study were made public and promptly cited as an authoritative source in Congress to influence policymakers. 

The shale institute aims to attract funding from various sources, including the oil-and-gas industry. Would the industry fund studies that did not prove its case? Will UB be vigilant enough to prevent promises of industry funding from dictating the institute’s conclusions?

Reports from the provost and the president cited above upheld the shale institute’s use of an “open peer-review method” for the “self-published” study.

However, open review of the institute study was ineffective. Reviewers who identified invalid conclusions have no power to enforce revision or rejection of the self-published study.

The shale institute study should have been peer-reviewed through an academic journal. In this case, if reviewers identify invalid conclusions, the journal editor has the power to enforce revision or rejection of the study for publication.

Scientists rely on the rigorous and critical peer-review process to ensure research integrity. The objectivity of the UB shale institute study was compromised. The authors should have been held to the same high standards of peer review as the UB faculty.

Published in the UB Reporter: Oct. 25, 2012

Post Comments to the letter at the UB Reporter website. The link is here.

UB Shale Institute Controversy: Review and Updates

By Steve Horn ~ 

Frackademia: Controversial SUNY Buffalo Shale Institute's Reputation Unraveling (via Desmogblog)

A storm is brewing in Buffalo and it's not the record snow storm typically associated with upstate New York. Rather, it's taking place in the ivory tower of academia and revolves around hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," for unconventional gas in the Marcellus Shale basin.  Public funding has…

Professors, Students To Confront University Administration Over UB Shale Institute

Over 600 UB Professors, Students, Staff and Community Members Have Signed a Petition Calling on UB to Increase Transparency

WHO: UB CLEAR (Coalition for Leading Ethically in Academic Research)

WHAT: Question and answer session with UB Administration where UB CLEAR members will confront UB Administration over the UB Shale Institute (Shale Resources and Society Institute)

WHERE: UB North Campus - Center For Tomorrow Building - Near Flint Rd. Entrance off Maple Rd - Directions

WHEN: Tuesday October 2^nd at 3:00 pm

WHY:  Since the UB Shale Institute issued its first report in May, significant questions have been raised about its funding, founding and potential conflicts-of-interest. On September 12, the SUNY Board of Trustees passed a resolution requiring the UB Administration to provide information about the Shale Institute. Despite a September 27 deadline, no information has been made public.

Contact: Prof. Jim Holstun, 884-0895

SUNY Trustees Require Investigation of UB Shale Institute

Board concerned about formation and funding of Institute, errors in its first report, and misrepresentation that it was peer reviewed

~ By David Kowalski and Jim Holstun ~

The SUNY Board of Trustees met in New York City on Wednesday, September 12, 2012. 

We wondered whether the Trustees would discuss the controversial Shale Resources and Society Institute (a.k.a., UB Shale Institute) created under the aegis of the University at Buffalo. Recently, 83 UB faculty and professional staff sent a letter to the university administration seeking  transparency on the Shale Institute. They urged the administration to make public all the documents that bear upon the founding, funding, staffing, operation and governance of the institute. Additionally, the New Yorkers Against Fracking announced a protest to be held outside the Board of Trustees meeting to push SUNY to stop supporting the industry-friendly Institute.

Live Webcasts of several different committee meetings were available online. We watched the meeting of the Research and Economic Development Committee.

Dr. Tim Killeen, the new President of the SUNY Research Foundation and former Assistant Director of Geosciences at the National Science Foundation, gave a presentation to the committee entitled "Advancing the SUNY Innovation Ecosystem." He indicated that there is great potential in collaborating with industry in New York. Killeen said that stimulating collaborative partnerships with industry is very important. He added that it has to be two-way, and has to be done with full integrity and ethical commitments.

Following a discussion of the presentation, Marshall Lichtman, acting chair of the committee, moved on to other business. Although the UB Shale Institute was not listed on the agenda, the discussion turned out to be devoted entirely to the Shale Institute and the University at Buffalo.

Below are excerpts from the committee's discussion:

Trustee Ronald G. Ehrenberg said "the whole issue of fracking research at Buffalo has sort of led to concerns about what policies we have in place regarding accountability and conflict of interest and conflict of commitment in terms of research." He added "Economists got into a lot of problems because a lot of people testifying or writing papers on financial regulation turned out were paid consultants to companies, and they never released that." He recommended convening the vice presidents for research at the different campuses and discussing the issues.

Trustee Joseph W. Belluck, speaking to Dr. Killeen, said "what happened in Buffalo threatens to undermine everything in your presentation, every single last bit of it." Belluck said "And what happened, and it was laid out very clearly in an NPR story that you can get on Google, is that there was a conference at Buffalo, and following the conference, an employee of a natural gas company sat down with people at the University at Buffalo and suggested to them that they set up an institute to research fracking, suggested to them that they hire a colleague of his who is a consultant to the energy industry, someone with very little academic credentials, if any, and suggested to them if they put out an article that was favorable, that they would attract additional resources from the gas industry."

"They then put out a report. They misrepresented that it was peer reviewed. As you and I have discussed, it’s the core principle of academic research, peer review. They misrepresented that. It was not peer reviewed. They misrepresented that reviewers who had read it supported the conclusions. And the Chancellor went on a television, a radio program, and asked UB to respond, and to explain what went on, take responsibility for it. And they really haven’t."

Speaking forcefully, Belluck continued "But this thing at UB, in my view, it has to be shut down. And I would like to bring a motion to the Board today that we call on Buffalo to shut this institute down. Because I don’t think that this is an academic institute. The faculty at Buffalo are upset about it because it was not set up with the rigors that an academic institute was set up for. We now have protestors coming today. It’s all over Google News. And I think it threatens to undermine us as a first-class research institute."

UB Must Investigate Its Shale Institute

Letter to the Editor of The Buffalo News - August 30, 2012 ~
By David Kowalski ~

University administrators, the press and the public are being duped by industry-backed studies masquerading as objective academic research. Specific examples involve studies released by the University at Buffalo Shale Resources and Society Institute, University of Texas and Penn State University. At all three public universities, authors of studies on the impacts of shale-gas extraction by fracking did not disclose gas industry ties, which were discovered only after their industry-biased conclusions were reported. The lead UB author also failed to disclose industry ties in a Penn State study that was later retracted by the university. The University of Texas is investigating its study's principle author. The absence of an investigation of the UB study damages the university's credibility and erodes public trust.

Publication of academic research in science requires disclosure of industry affiliations and funding sources to avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest. Also required is anonymous peer review mediated by a journal editor, which generally results in revision and resubmission, and ultimately, in acceptance or rejection for publication. University studies resulting from industry-affiliated research should likewise undergo rigorous peer review and be published in a journal prior to their release to the press.

The UB press release contained authors' conclusions that were not peer-reviewed, not supported by the data and were biased in favor of the gas industry. At this critical time in determining policies on shale-gas fracking, it is outrageous that invalid conclusions in the UB press release were made public and promptly cited as an authoritative source in Congress in order to influence policy makers.

The lack of transparency and academic rigor is appalling and intolerable. The UB administration should uphold academic standards and initiate an industry-independent investigation of the Shale Resources and Society Institute and its research findings. 

~ ~ ~

UB Shale Institute -- Links to selected news reports and recent updates: 

• UB report on 'fracking' draws fire of watchdog
• Institute’s Gas Drilling Report Leads to Claims of Bias and Concern for a University’s Image
• Fracking Research and the Money That Flows To It
• Frackers Fund University Research That Proves Their Case
• UB staff, students urge probe of institute
• The hidden sponsors of fracking studies
• Transparency urged for shale institute
• Faculty Question SUNY-Buffalo About Fracking Institute
• Controversy still simmers over SUNY Buffalo Shale Institute
• “Nonsense” and UB’s Shale Resources and Society Institute

~ ~ ~

 

Editorial Cartoon by Adam Zyglis in The Buffalo News - August 14, 2012

Should UB Sponsor a Shale Gas Institute?

~ By David Kowalski ~

The University at Buffalo (UB) has now entered into the controversial area of unconventional shale-gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing ('fracking') by sponsoring a newly-created "Shale Resources and Society Institute" (SRSI).

Last week, SRSI released their first study, which is entitled "Environmental Impacts During Shale Gas Drilling: Causes, Impacts and Remedies". The authors stated strong conclusions, which were included in a UB news release (May 15, 2012), and subsequently made for some sensational newspaper headlines. However, others who have since examined the study indicated that the authors' conclusions are biased and not supported by the data (see below).

And that's not all. Initial examination of the background of the study's authors indicated close ties with the gas drilling industry. Also, the UB news release claim that the report was "peer-reviewed" was incorrect. Subsequently, UB retracted that claim in a revised press release. Then one of the so-called peer-reviewers distanced himself from the SRSI study. Finally, the authors did not disclose their funding sources. All of these issues made shale gas and fracking sensitive topics at UB, as documented in a post last week.

Shown below are excerpts of new reports with a link to each full report. These articles start with an editorial letter by me, and continue with detailed analyses of the SRSI report by others, which together provide independent views of flaws and industry-bias in the SRSI study and lead one to question the wisdom of UB sponsorship.
 
Shale study harms UB’s reputation, By David Kowalski, Letter to The Buffalo News, May 24, 2012
But the fact that all three authors have ties to the energy industry raises concern about conflicts of interest. Their report and undisclosed funding sources only reinforce that concern and harm the university. 

They claimed that the decline [in environmental violations per gas well] was evidence for improved industry operations and state regulations. However, the authors completely ignored the fact that, as more wells were drilled over time, the total number of environmental violations increased by threefold. 

It is a shame that this study was done under the aegis of UB. The university should protect its reputation and re-evaluate its sponsorship of the Shale Resources and Society Institute.  

UB report on 'fracking' draws fire of watchdog, By David Robinson, The Buffalo News -- Front page story, May 25, 2012
A Buffalo-based corporate accountability research group Thursday criticized as "seriously flawed and biased" last week's study from the University at Buffalo that said stronger regulation was leading to an improved safety record among drillers in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale.

The new report from the Public Accountability Initiative disputed the conclusions of the study by UB's new Shale Resources and Society Institute, which reported that the rate of environmental violations -- both major and minor -- were declining at Pennsylvania's Marcellus wells.

"The evidence does not support the notion that fracking is becoming any safer," the new study said.

"While masquerading as independent, academic research, the report's errors all point in the direction of heavy pro-industry bias and spin," the Public Accountability Initiative study said.  

Critics question shale gas researcher, schools, By Kevin Begos, Associated Press, May 25, 2012

 A well-known expert on the natural gas boom is again facing criticism over his ties to industry and a lack of transparency in how he presents work to the public, fueling debates over research that's been published by major universities.

Timothy Considine was lead author on a shale gas report recently issued by the University at Buffalo and a previous report from Penn State University. Critics say both reports presented research in misleading ways and failed to fully disclose funding sources.

Considine, now at the University of Wyoming, has gotten funding from industry groups such as the Marcellus Shale Coalition, the Wyoming Mining Association, the American Iron and Steel Institute, and the American Petroleum Institute.

On Thursday, the Public Accountability Initiative, a Buffalo nonprofit, issued a critique of the UB study.

The University at Buffalo also said the report "was not funded or commissioned by external sources." But Considine told The Associated Press in an email that the University of Wyoming paid him and two other lead authors.

 

Martha McCluskey, a University at Buffalo law professor who was on an ethics committee there, said the new shale institute appears not to meet disclosure provisions and hasn't gone through the standard process for faculty approval and vetting of new centers and initiatives to preserve academic integrity.  

UB Pulls SRSI Website, By the Public Accountability Initiative, May 25, 2012 (updated May 26, 2012)

The University at Buffalo Shale Resources and Society Institute (SRSI), the subject of the analysis we released yesterday, has password-protected its website as of this morning. Notably, the SUNY Fredonia Shale Resources Institute also pulled its website recently after negative attention from Artvoice. 

The Public Accountability Initiative saved copies of most of the SRSI’s web pages.

Update (5/26): The SRSI site is accessible again, and UB has issued a statement regarding the SRSI report.