The frenzy that has overcome Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale Formation (link) as greedy companies and individuals clamor for rights to drill for natural gas by fracking, has produced disturbing developments. The most serious of which is the wanton pollution of rivers, streams and groundwater from which PA residents get their drinking water. What is equally disturbing is that the state could not account for ~1.28 million barrels (with an M) - 1/5 of the total barrels of toxic waste produced during a 12 month period. This waste contains among other chemicals: trihalomethanes (as a result of bromide reacting with chlorine), dissolved salts, barium, radium and other chlorides.
Review this Vanity Fair video on regular Americans that are being badly hurt by fracking
In 2009 and 2010 Cabot Oil & Gas transported ~ 44,000 barrels of well waste water to a treatment facility in Hatfield Township (a suburb if Philadelphia) and they were simply dumped into a creek. The Beaver County Times points out:
Pennsylvania is rare among gas-producing states in that it allows the wastewater that flows out of natural gas wells to be disposed of in rivers.
In most states, drillers are required to send the liquid back down deep shafts so it can't pollute surface water.
Drilling companies use about 2 million gallons of water a day in Pennsylvania to help get at the gas locked in its vast underground Marcellus Shale gas field. During a process called hydraulic fracturing [aka, fracking], the water _ mixed with sand and chemicals, some of them toxic _ is forced into the wells at high pressure, shattering the shale and releasing trapped gas.The irresponsibility of Pennsylvania is absolutely unconscionable when the siren call of government is the non-stop pounding for citizens to take responsibility for their own actions. WHERE IS GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY?
It is worth reading another article and the comments on the distribution of wealth from the Marcellus Shale.
©Sharky&Sharky
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