Virtual Tour of Upper Delaware River now available (below)

From an Article by Zola Teirstein, Grist Magazine, March 3, 2021

Fracking got banned in parts of four states, and the industry is livid.

The Delaware River Basin, a 13,539-square-mile area bisected by a sparkling river that stretches from New York’s Catskill Mountains to the Delaware Bay, is officially closed to fracking. Last week, a little-known but powerful interstate commission called the Delaware River Basin Commission, or DRBC, voted 4-0 to make a 2010 de facto ban on fracking in the basin permanent.

The ban, which outlaws fracking in Marcellus Shale gas deposits in the parts of the four states that fall within the basin’s boundaries, is the result of more than a decade of work by regional environmental groups and growing public opposition to fracking. It may be the biggest anti-fracking milestone in the Northeast to date.

Vermont, Maryland, and New York state permanently banned fracking in 2012, 2017, and 2020, respectively, but Vermont doesn’t have any natural gas to speak of, while Maryland and New York have small reserves.

Seven Pennsylvania counties within the Delaware River Basin sit over the northeast’s Marcellus Shale rock formation, which holds trillions of cubic feet of natural gas. Natural gas is extracted from the shale via a process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which typically involves shooting pressurized water mixed with sand and chemicals — some of which, like methanol, are hazardous to human health — into the shale to crack it open. Those chemicals can seep into the surrounding environment and have been found in drinking water supplies.

“This is a really important win both for the environment, for the Delaware River Basin and for all the groups who have been fighting this for so long,” Wes Gillingham, associate director of Catskill Mountainkeeper, one of the environmental groups that has been pushing the DRBC to adopt a permanent fracking ban, told Grist. “To see the whole basin protected, the whole watershed, this whole ecosystem which is one of the most pristine ecosystems on the East Coast, it’s a wonderful thing to be part of.”

The official ban on fracking in the basin has been a long time coming. The DRBC, made up of the governors of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware along with the northeastern division head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, started kicking around the idea of regulating hydraulic fracturing in 2008 in response to Pennsylvania’s shale boom and stopped approving new drilling in the basin in 2010 while it figured out what kind of permanent regulations to adopt. The commission faced pushback from a group of landowners in gas-rich Wayne County, Pennsylvania, in 2016, who sued the DRBC in federal court, arguing that the commission didn’t have jurisdiction over their land. That lawsuit was thrown out, and in 2017, the commission proposed a permanent ban on fracking that was finally officially adopted last Thursday.

The Wayne County lawsuit, however, was brought back from the dead on appeal in 2018 and is still ongoing today. That lawsuit will play out in Pennsylvania over the coming months or maybe even years, but it’s clear that the landowners don’t have the support of their Democratic governor. In a statement read aloud at the DRBC hearing approving the fracking ban last week, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf said he was “proud to join with other DRBC commissioners in preserving the water resources of this unique region for generations to come.”

Natural gas groups are livid about the DRBC’s decision and the federal government’s role, or lack thereof, in the vote. The Army Corps of Engineers representative abstained from voting for or against the fracking ban last week, saying that the Biden administration was still undergoing a period of transition and didn’t give the corps a direct command on how to vote. “This vote defies common sense, sound science, and is a grave blow to constitutionally protected private property rights,” David Callahan, the president of an industry group called the Marcellus Shale Coalition, said in a statement. “We were hopeful that President Biden would keep his vague commitment to not ban fracking, as he told Pennsylvania voters over and over.” Biden has not banned fracking — he can’t do that without congressional approval — but he has imposed a moratorium on new oil and gas leases on public lands.

Environmental groups aren’t totally happy with the ban, either. It doesn’t prohibit the export of water from the Delaware River to areas outside of the watershed for fracking projects, nor does it ban the import of fracking wastewater from outside projects. However, the DRBC voted 5-0 to approve a resolution to start the rulemaking process for imports and exports of water for and from fracking. “Hopefully we can extend the fracking ban farther and farther,” Gillingham said. “Every day, there’s more science that comes out that shows this is really not safe, and that’s not even mentioning what it’s doing to our climate.”

>>>>>>>>………………>>>>>>>…………………>>>>>>>

Virtual Tour – Upper Delaware Scenic & Recreational River (U.S. National Park Service), December 9, 2020

Created for the National Park Service Centennial celebration, the Upper Delaware Virtual Tour, in five separate modules, is an interactive reference guide to the outstandingly remarkable values of the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River. Click on any modules below to explore the 73 miles of Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River which preserves and protects one of America’s most important wild and scenic rivers.

https://www.nps.gov/upde/learn/virtual-tour.htm

People's Climate March 4-29-17

People’s Climate March Draws Massive Crowd in DC

From an Article by Stephanie Spears, EcoWatch.com, April 29, 2017

More than 200,000 people took to the streets in Washington, DC, today for the People’s Climate March. Tens of thousands more joined via sister marches across the globe, including Japan, the Philippines, New Zealand, Uganda, Kenya, Germany, Greece, United Kingdom, Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica, et al.

EcoWatch will be covering the People’s Climate March all day in Washington, DC, starting with interviews around 9:15 a.m. EST of climateleaders, spokespeople and influencers. From 10:30 – 11 a.m., 10 powerful speakers will tell their stories about why they are marching. At 11 a.m., hundreds of thousands of people will start to line up for the march. There are also hundreds of sister marches around the world.

Led by frontline and Indigenous communities, the march will begin up Pennsylvania Avenue at 12:30 p.m. towards the White House. At 2 p.m., marches will begin to surround the White House grounds, sit-down, take a moment of silence and join in a heartbeat action for 100 seconds to signify our collective stake in this fight.

“On the 100th day of the Trump presidency, the Peoples Climate March will show that our movements are ready to fight for our climate, jobs and justice,” 350.org’s Executive Director May Boeve said.

“While Trump and his crony cabinet rollback hard-won protections of our communities and our climate, we are mobilizing to fight for the bold solutions we need. We will present our vision to replace the fossil fuel industry with a 100% clean energy economy that works for all. Today, we march. Tomorrow, we rise united across our communities to make our vision of a just and equitable world a reality.”

See also: https://350.org

Fracking Protest at Maryland State Capitol

Maryland’s Fracking Ban Goes Up Against Corporate Democrats

From an Article by Russell Mokhiber, Counter Punch, November 17, 2016

The Maryland legislature is controlled by the Democratic Party. The Maryland Senate by 33 to 14 and the Maryland General Assembly by 91 to 50. Of course, that doesn’t mean that corporations don’t get what they want in Maryland.

Let us take the case of hydraulic fracturing of natural gas — also known as fracking. In 2015, a grassroots movement pushed for a statewide ban on fracking — but instead got a moratorium that expires in October 2017. So, in January, the bill to ban fracking will be up again in the legislature. If it doesn’t pass, then fracking comes to Maryland.

Maryland is surrounded by states that have been fracking for awhile, in particular West Virginia and Pennsylvania. And the results are obvious for all to see. At the top of the list — contaminated well water.

Even in Trump country, people are learning their fracking lesson. So, for example, in conservative western Maryland, where most of the Maryland fracking would occur and where Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by three to one, recent polls show that people there support a ban on fracking by two to one. (That’s also the margin statewide.)

That means that there are a lot of Trump supporters who don’t want their communities turned into West Virginia or Pennsylvania. There is a growing grassroots movement to ban fracking in Maryland, led by groups like Citizen Shale and Don’t Frack Maryland.

But they are up against the wall of corporate Democrats. Take the case of Democratic State Senator Joan Carter Conway. She’s featured in the recent documentary — Fracking Western Maryland — which focuses her role in the 2015 fight to ban fracking.

In February 2015, the Baltimore Sun reported that “most previous attempts at a ban have been blocked in the Senate’s Education, Health and Environmental Affairs committee by its chairwoman, Democratic Senator Joan Carter Conway of Baltimore.”

If a bill banning fracking ever made it onto the floor of the Maryland Senate, Senator Conway had a predication. “It’s never going to pass,” she said. “It’s never going to pass. It’s never going to pass.”

Why is Conway, a liberal Democrat from Baltimore, so opposed to a ban on fracking?  She’s from Baltimore. No fracking there.

But corporate lobbyists galore. It’s clear from the documentary that Conway is fronting for the fracking industry. She sees a ban coming down the pike and introduces a bill that would put a moratorium on it for two years and then require the Maryland Department of the Environment to draft fracking regulations to govern the industry.

Conway’s bill bumped a bill that would have put in place an eight year moratorium and require a health study. Why did she do this?

“Why did they do that?” said Ann Bristow, a western Maryland resident who appeared in the documentary. “Because none of them wanted to know what the health research is saying. They are realizing that any place that puts health in the lead, then you end up with a ban like they did in New York.”

In the documentary, Conway says — “until we have a well in Maryland, we will never know what is going to happen.”

Same thing that’s happening in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, right? The groundwater gets contaminated? No, Conway says, Maryland is different. She doesn’t explain how.

Conway says she was insulted when protesters from Don’t Frack Maryland showed up outside her office in downtown Baltimore earlier this week. But she’s apparently not insulted by her close ties to the fracking industry. Conway is close friends with corporate lobbyists Lisa Harris Jones and Sean Malone.

Their firm — Harris Jones Malone — is the top lobbying firm for the gas industry in the state of Maryland. Conway was the matron of honor at the 2013 Jones Malone wedding in Las Vegas.

“I’m like a godmother to them,” Conway told the Baltimore Brew. “You can’t expect people who work together to not have personal relationships or to abandon their friendships because they work together.”

Last night, a group supporting the ban on fracking in Maryland showed up in Calvert County at a League of Women Voters organized gathering to allow citizens to meet their local state legislators. Aeryn Boyd and Kimberly Alexander were there. They have been walking across Maryland — west to east — to draw attention to the battle ban fracking in Maryland.

Turns out that the Senate President, Mike Miller is from Calvert County and was at the meeting. Miller has been Maryland Senate president for 30 years. Alexander was not impressed.

“He has great influence over whether or not the Maryland Fracking ban will go through,” Alexander said. “He literally sat through an entire League of Women Voters meeting watching a basketball game. We circled around him to talk about fracking, he took his phone out and continued to watch the game while his constituents told him about their concerns, about family members getting sick from the natural gas industry.”

“‘Dude, turn that shit off, these are the people you are supposed to be representing,” Alexander whispered in his ear. “It’s okay sweetie, it’s okay” he brushed me/us off.’”

• >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >

Extend the fracking ban in Maryland

Editorial, The Baltimore Sun, December 30, 2016

Marylanders have long held serious misgivings about the use of hydraulic fracturing to drill for natural gas, and we have shared those concerns. Under the administrations of both Gov. Larry Hogan and his predecessor, Martin O’Malley, there have been efforts by the Maryland Department of the Environment to adopt what Democrats and Republicans alike have vowed would be the strictest fracking regulations in the country. Yet over and over again, there have been doubts about whether the protections involved — to ensure clean drinking water supplies and preserve Western Maryland’s scenic resources — would be adequate.

The most recent rules, as drafted by the Hogan administration and now under review, are no different. And as the nation’s natural gas glut continues — to the extent that even oil industry advocates doubt that Maryland is likely to attract much drilling even if a temporary ban on fracking is lifted — many are asking, why risk fracking at all?

We agree. It’s a bad bet. When members of the Maryland General Assembly reconvene next month, high on the agenda should be making permanent the temporary moratorium on fracking that is set to expire next year. Fracking advocates have failed to make the case that the economic value of recovering gas from the Marcellus Shale deposits outweighs the potential economic and environmental harm that accompanies it.

And it’s highly likely that a majority of Maryland residents agree with that position. That was the conclusion of a recent poll conducted by OpinionWorks for the Don’t Frack Maryland Coalition, which found support for a fracking ban even in Western Maryland. In all, the survey determined that state residents favored a ban by a 56-28 margin with 16 percent undecided.

This is not a position we take lightly. Western Maryland has an unemployment rate above the statewide average — between 4.4 and 5.2 percent by county compared to the statewide average of 4.0 percent. But it is also highly dependent on tourism, with scenic attractions like Deep Creek Lake, the Youghiogheny River, Swallow Falls State Park, the C & O Canal and many others that are a key part of the state’s $16.4 billion visitor business. Even if fracking doesn’t cause immediate harm to any of those attractions, how might public perception of the region change?

Still, it isn’t just a matter of image. The risks posed by fracking are real. Often, the problem is the method of disposal for wastewater from well injection sites — the technology involves forcing a mixture of water, chemicals and sand under high pressure into underground rock to release trapped gas — and its impact on local groundwater. In neighboring West Virginia, for example, the U.S. Geological Survey found Wolf Creek in Fayette County contaminated with sodium, chloride, strontium, lithium and radium traced to a nearby underground well.

But that’s not all. The potential adverse impacts include damage to human health, clean air and water; excessive noise pollution and even micro-earthquakes. That doesn’t mean fracking can’t be done relatively safely compared to, say, coal mining or logging, which have also operated in Western Maryland, but it does mean that the potential for adverse impacts, even accidental ones, is quite high — the sheer volume of water required (as much as 7 million gallons to frack a single well) practically dictates that.

And even if Maryland dropped the moratorium and adopted the MDE rules, it’s unlikely there’s going to be any gold rush to purchase or extend gas leases. That’s what makes an outright ban the safest possible wager — the resource won’t be going away; it will remain buried in those shale deposits like a savings account. If at some future date, the risk is more manageable and the demand for the resource is more robust, perhaps the moratorium can be revisited. In the interim, Maryland will learn more from the mistakes of neighboring states.

That makes a ban on fracking a win-win for everyone, except perhaps the U.S. oil and gas industry. But even they may not complain too much given the multitude of more pressing problems from falling demand and low prices to high production from Middle East competitors. If Maryland earns a national reputation for being ultra-cautious about its precious water resources, so much the better.

See also: Engage Mountain Maryland at www.Engagemmd.org

How much will fracking increase radon levels

The New York Primary Will Be a Big Fracking Deal

From an Article by Ari Phillips, Fusion and Mother Jones, April 8, 2016

On April 19, when New Yorkers get their turn to vote on the country’s next leader, the future of natural gas—specifically gas that comes from hydraulic fracturing—will be on many people’s minds.

Clean energy and climate activists are hoping to build on the attention that a highly public skirmish between Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders about the role of fossil fuel money in campaigns has already brought to the New York race. At the same time, illustrating the success of the multi-year, multi-pronged anti-fracking movement in the state, which has now evolved into “fractivism 2.0″—a broader endeavor pushing for change across the energy and climate platforms—could give a boost of momentum to these issues at the national level.

In one example of this on Tuesday, April 5, several hundred activists rallied in Albany, the state’s capital, to ask the Democratic candidates (as well as Republicans Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and John Kasich, if they can be bothered) to take a stand against natural gas pipelines that are slated to crisscross the state. One of these pipelines, the Constitution Pipeline, or the “unConstitution Pipeline” as it’s referred to by the Stop the Pipeline organization, is in the final stages of the approval process. Activists are hoping New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will use the state’s authority under the Clean Water Act to deny the pipeline a necessary water quality permit.

While Cuomo has yet to take a stance on pipelines and other natural gas infrastructure that processes fuel from places like the gas-rich Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania, his administration banned hydraulic fracturing in the state in 2014 in response to concerns about health risks. New York remains the only state in the nation with proven gas reserves to have such a ban in place.

Alex Beauchamp, the Northeast region director at Food & Water Watch, told me that he thinks the next logical step for the movement after the statewide fracking ban was to try and stop reliance on fracked gas from other states—gas that enters the state though “a maze of pipelines, storage facilities, and compression stations.”

“By the time we get through all of my conditions, I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue.”

Beauchamp said that even though New York has outlawed fracking, the state is using even more natural gas than it was just a few years ago due to imports from out-of-state supplies. He also said many of the people involved in the push to eliminate fracking and natural gas expansions are pushing for a “real plan” to get the state on track to get 100 percent of its energy from renewable sources.

“We need enforceable benchmarks along the way,” he said. “There is no real actual plan to get us there.”

In a testament to this, the 100% Renewable NY campaign and the Fossil Free state divestment campaign are organizing a Climate Change Lobby Day on Monday, April 11, at the state capitol. Bills promoting 100 percent clean energy by 2030, divestment from fossil fuels, and other climate- and clean-energy-friendly policies, such as offshore wind production, will be discussed.

With a high-profile New York primary fast approaching, Clinton—a two-term senator for New York—is meeting face to face with her home state’s anti-fracking movement, which is gathering force around Sanders, who recently said in a debate that he does not support fracking.

Clinton’s answer to the question in the March 6 debate was less straightforward. She told moderator Anderson Cooper that she supports fracking only in very specific circumstances: when local governments approve, when companies are forthcoming about the chemicals they’re using, and when they can prove they aren’t polluting nearby water or land.

“By the time we get through all of my conditions, I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue,” Clinton said. Expect at least one fossil fuel-related question to come up at the Democratic debate in Brooklyn on April 14.

As Ben Adler at Grist recently pointed out, Clinton and climate activists appear to butt heads on several key issues, including fossil fuel production on public lands and the value of natural gas as a “bridge fuel” to smooth the transition to renewables.

“Clinton’s platform on fossil fuels has been moving steadily leftward since she entered the race, as she has come out against Arctic and Atlantic offshore drilling, called for stricter fracking regulation, and endorsed leasing reform,” wrote Adler. “But climate activists won’t be satisfied until she fully embraces the principle that the government shouldn’t help produce fossil fuels at all—not even natural gas as a supposed lesser evil than coal.”

Clinton’s history of supporting natural gas during her stint as US secretary of state from 2009 to 2013 is also worrisome to some, even though at the time it was really just part of the Obama administration’s overall support of the industry.

The administration has changed its tune somewhat in recent years, and the EPA recently said tackling methane emissions is one of its top issues in 2016. Methane is a very potent greenhouse gas and leaks from natural gas infrastructure—such as the devastating leak from a dated well outside Los Angeles earlier this year—are major contributors to the problem. The Obama administration recently set a goal of slashing methane emissions by up to 45 percent from 2012 levels over the next decade.

Beauchamp said he still considers there to be a lack of leadership on natural gas production and fracking at a national level, saying “there’s really a lag from what we’re seeing at a state level.”

Even so, compared with eight years ago when fracking really wasn’t even an issue in the presidential election, the overall shift in discussion is dramatic. Beauchamp thinks it could even play a role in fracking-friendly Pennsylvania, which holds its primary on April 26.

“I there there’s a shift in Pennsylvania as well,” he said. “The myth is that where’s there’s fracking they love it and where there isn’t they oppose it. What we see in polling is that as people become more familiar with what it is, they tend to dislike it more.”

A recent Gallup poll found that since last March there has been an 11 percentage point increase in those opposing the practice. Perhaps most surprisingly, the percentage of Republicans in support of fracking declined 11 percentage points. This polling coincides with polls showing that more than two-thirds of Americans are now “worried” about global warming—an eight-year high.

“What we see in polling is that as people become more familiar with what it is, they tend to dislike it more.”

Deborah Goldberg, the managing attorney of Earthjustice’s Northeast regional office, told me that many of the upstate New Yorkers who helped lead the charge against fracking in the state were not “traditional left-leaning, tree-hugging types of people,” but they were still galvanized by the destruction that oil and gas development was wreaking on other places. She said she thinks the success of the New York movement gave “people hope that where they are able to really organize and educate each other, they can make a difference.”

Since the Cuomo administration made the determination to prohibit fracking, Goldberg said people who were engaged in that fight have become involved in a “wide array of efforts to address infrastructure that facilitates the transportation and storage or processing of natural gas and oil,” such as the Constitution Pipeline, which is “emblematic of what they’re fighting for.” She said this is a much more diffuse movement because it can’t be fought with just one rule or regulatory process, but requires lots of different angles.

She also said a lot of people are working on the positive side to try to develop clean energy at the state, county, and local levels. She said they refer to all these efforts together as “fractivism 2.0.” “They’re trying to prevent the country and the planet from digging their own graves by committing ourselves to another 50 or 100 years of burning fossil fuels,” she said.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Shale Fracking Pollutes the Environment

Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard Rejects Shale Gas Exploitation On Fracking Concerns

From an Article in the Canadian Press, Huffington Post, December 16, 2014

MONTREAL – Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard says he is not interested in exploiting the province’s shale gas reserves. He tells the CBC’s French-language service that Quebecers are largely against hydraulic fracturing.

Couillard made the comments shortly after Quebec’s environmental review board concluded the environmental and social risks associated with hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” outweigh the financial benefits. Fracking is a process whereby a pressurized fluid is injected into shale rock in order to crack the rock and release underground natural gas deposits.

The environmental review board noted that fracking risks contaminating surface and underground water basins and that citizens living along the St. Lawrence River are against the practice. Quebec imposed a moratorium on drilling exploratory fracking wells in 2011.

Also on HuffPost:

Drilling And Fracking Photos 1 of 31

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net