Monday, April 22, 2024
Tags Posts tagged with "fracking"

Tag: fracking

An active year of drilling and high natural gas prices last year led Pennsylvania to collect the second largest amount ever in impact fee revenue from natural gas drillers.

Brine from the Redbird #4 injection well in Washington County, Ohio migrated out of its injection zone in 2019 and into several nearby oil and gas production wells. That brine did not affect the private drinking water wells tested, according to a study published by ODNR earlier this summer.

The Pennsylvania DEP is now requiring all landfills to test leachate for radioactive materials commonly found in unconventional oil and gas waste, even though a department study found "no significant differences in radium levels between landfills that accept oil and gas waste compared with those that do not."

Judge Paul S. Diamond said the dispute between the Delaware River Basin Commission, Republican lawmakers and several municipalities “is essentially political and so best resolved by the political branches of government.”

Democratic lawmakers introduced a slew of bills meant to tighten up regulations on Pennsylvania’s shale gas industry. The package of legislation came as a response to last summer’s grand jury report on the unconventional oil and gas industry, which found the DEP failed to protect residents from the health impacts of fracking.

The Ohio House version of the 2022-23 state operating budget includes language that would make it state policy to “promote” oil and gas development, exploration and production. The House also added in provisions to make it easier to lease mineral rights under state lands.

State and federal regulators levied a nearly $2 million fine against Chesapeake Appalachia for damaging streams and wetlands at 76 gas drilling sites in Pennsylvania. The damages happened across sites in Beaver, Bradford, Sullivan, Susquehanna and Wyoming counties.

The decision comes after a ruling last year found the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service failed to adequately consider the environmental impacts hydraulic fracturing could have on Wayne National Forest.

The Delaware River Basin Commission approved a permanent ban on hydraulic fracturing, impacting the Marcellus Shale gas fields in northeast Pennsylvania.

Local officials and industry leaders are pushing back on a report that says the fracking boom was a bust for Appalachian communities in Ohio and Pennsylvania.