Money Needed to Maintain the Roads for Heavy Trucks

February 2, 2012

The state Division of Highways is monitoring road damage resulting from gas drilling operations to ensure companies make repairs. Increased traffic on state and county roads is due to the Marcellus shale development activities, in addition to coal and logging trucks.  The operations require huge, heavy vehicles carrying water, sand and equipment. District 6 engineer [...]

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Special Report on Possible Ethane Cracker Plants in WV, PA and OH

February 1, 2012

 SPECIAL REPORT ON POSSIBLE ETHANE CRACKERS Introduction The Governors of WV, PA and OH are all dreaming and scheming for the siting of a major new chemical industry in their State.   The reports below are all drawn from Internet web-sites that relate to this main theme.  What we discover here is the extent to which ethane [...]

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Visitors from Athens (Ohio) Report on Fracking in Wetzel County, WV

January 31, 2012

Residents from Athens County in southeastern Ohio have visited Wetzel County in West Virginia to get a first-hand understanding of the issues involving deep drilling and fracking for natural gas.  They witnessed the drilling equipment, gas wells and pipelines across the cleared muddy landscape just a few miles into the hills from the Ohio River. [...]

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An Overview of Drilling and Fracking in the Marcellus Shale

January 30, 2012

On the 28th of January, 2012, two lectures were presented at Athens, Ohio.  The local speaker was Dr. S. Thomas Bond of Harrison County, WV. He is active in the Guardians of the West Fork as well as the WV/PA Monongahela Area Watersheds Compact. The other speaker was Calvin Tillman, former mayor of DISH, Texas. Mr. [...]

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Death of a Fractivist

January 30, 2012

I read about the death of  Carl Stiles yesterday.  Thank you, Dory Hippauf, for sharing that very sad link on the FrackCheckWV Facebook wall.  Here’s the link. I’ve added this tragic tale to The Human Story page (under the Impacts tab) on this website along with the other stories that are coming out in a [...]

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Also this week…

January 28, 2012

Tomblin woos Shell Executives; Pennsylvania drafting their own tax break bill Governor Earl Ray Tomblin met with Shell executives in Texas on Thursday to promote West Virginia as the place to build an ethane cracker plant with his newly inked 25 year tax break bill in hand.  See web story on CBS Moneywatch. That bill [...]

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Natural Gas From Shale as “Bridge Fuel” Would Worsen Climate Change

January 25, 2012

Cornell University Instead of being a “solution” to climate change, natural gas extracted from shale is a huge contributor of greenhouse gases when both methane and carbon dioxide are considered, according to a major new study by three Cornell University researchers. Methane, which is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, is the [...]

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Marcellus Environmental and Future Fund Bills Proposed

January 24, 2012

The Intelligencer reported that Delegate Mike Manypenny (D-Taylor) has introduced three bills pertaining to Marcellus Shale drilling during this year’s legislative session.  Manypenny plans to introduce 20 amendments to the Marcellus bill which was passed in Special Session before Christmas in order to beef up the bill’s environmental and public health protections and surface owners [...]

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DOE Cuts Marcellus Gas Reserves Estimate by 2/3

January 24, 2012

The Energy Department revised downward it’s estimate of how much gas reserves are contained in the Marcellus shale. Per an AP story in CBS Moneywatch: Its Annual Energy Outlook for 2012 says the Marcellus Shale region holds about 141 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered natural gas. That’s down from a 2011 estimate of 410 trillion [...]

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WV House Passes Tax Break Bill for Cracker Plant; Chesapeake Moving Rigs

January 24, 2012

West Virginia is in competition with Ohio and Pennsylvania for an ethane cracker plant.  That appears to be driving legislation to encourage industry to “Pick me, Pick me.”   Per an AP report, The House suspended procedural rules on Monday to allow for an early vote on a bill to give big tax breaks on real [...]

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