Monitoring Marcellus Shale Gas Activities in the Cheat River Watershed

May 6, 2011

The lower Cheat River watershed is now challenged by an influx of Marcellus shale natural gas development.  An article and map have been prepared by the Friends of the Cheat (FOC) to illustrate how these sites are concentrated, many on quality streams.  As of early April, there have been over 50 Marcellus related gas permits [...]

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Two Marcellus Permits Issued for Morgantown Industrial Park, Upstream of Drinking Water Intake

May 6, 2011

View Larger Map The WV DEP, in March, issued permits for Northeast Natural Energy of Charleston, WV to drill two Marcellus gas wells on a well pad in the Morgantown Industrial Park.  The company has the option to apply to drill four more wells on the pad.  The fact that the site is located upstream [...]

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PA DEP Clarifies: Pre-approval Not Required to Issue Violations

May 4, 2011

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett and other top state officials have reaffirmed that PA shale gas inspectors have the full authority to issue violations without prior approval from the DEP Chief.  This is in response to a controversial email from a PA DEP aid to agency staff, leaked to the media on March 23, 2011.  The directive [...]

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Four Marcellus Shale Gas Drilling Cases are before the Federal District Judge in the WV Northern Panhandle

May 1, 2011

Four legal case in the northern panhandle are now before federal Judge Frederick Stamp of the Northern District of West Virginia.  All four cases involve property owners versus Chesapeake Energy. These have been reported upon by the Morgantown Dominion Post newspaper. Rine case –This case was reported on earlier here.  This past week Chesapeake Energy [...]

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Leakage, Spills, Breaches, and Blowouts of Growing Concern in the Natural Gas Industry

April 29, 2011

Dominion Transmission is working with the WV-DEP to address environmental conditions at the Hastings Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) Tank Farm, which is located along state Route 20 in Wetzel county. The main Chemicals of Concern (COC) at the site are petroleum products used by the former operators at the facility to produce gasoline. Additional COCs [...]

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Our Leaders Cannot Hide the Chemicals in our Drinking Water

April 28, 2011

Since 2008, water samples in the Monongahela River have shown increased levels of bromide chemicals.  This is likely coming from blow-back water from Marcellus fracking operations and other possible sources.  The Ohio River at Wheeling, for example has shown similar trends.  As a result, there have been high levels of bromine containing disinfection by-products, in [...]

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Tomblin’s Marcellus Task Force Not Yet Up And Running

April 26, 2011

Back in mid-February, acting governor Tomblin signed an executive order creating a Marcellus to Manufacturing Task Force, consisting primarily of gas and chemical industry executives, from Bayer Corporation, Triana Energy, Caiman Energy, Northeast Natural Energy, Chesapeake Energy, EQT and others. Its main goal was to attract and encourage employers that convert ethane, a compound removed [...]

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WVU Extension Program on Marcellus Criticized for Omission of Risks; Bias due to Industry Funding?

April 26, 2011

In my brief stint as a CPA, I was taught that for accounting purposes, it is not enough that a transaction is legal and not improper by technical standards. The transaction must also have the appearance of propriety. The appearance of propriety is lacking in the relationship between the WVU Extension Service and the oil [...]

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Upcoming Events

April 25, 2011

The FrackCheckWV Calendar has been updated for these events. WV/PA MONONGAHELA AREA WATERSHEDS COMPACT Thursday, April 28, 1 pm,  Morgantown Airport Annex Reports on Marcellus well development in the local region. MARCELLUS SHALE FARM WALK (MONONGALIA COUNTY LIVESTOCK IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION) Saturday, May 7, 12 noon,  Clark Farm, Burton, WV Free lunch provided RSVP to 304/291-7201 before [...]

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Chesapeake Suspends Fracking in PA and WV to Investigate Well Blowout

April 22, 2011

A press relesase by Chesapeake says, “Chesapeake has voluntarily suspended all completion operations in Pennsylvania as we evaluate this incident.” Ken Ward reported in his Sustained Outrage blog “Rory Sweeney, a spokesman for Chesapeake, just clarified that Chesapeake has halted  “fracking” operations at all of its eastern operations,including in West Virginia, while it investigates the [...]

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