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Pennsylvania cattle quarantined from gas fracking contamination
Axis of Logic ^ | Friday, Jul 9, 2010 | Tom Laskawy

Posted on 07/10/2010 2:22:27 PM PDT by Willie Green

Agriculture officials have quarantined 28 beef cattle on a Pennsylvania farm after wastewater from a nearby gas well leaked into a field and came in contact with the animals.

The state Department of Agriculture said the action was its first livestock quarantine related to pollution from natural gas drilling. Although the quarantine was ordered in May, it was announced Thursday.

A mere taste of what's to come from natural-gas fracking in the Marcellus Shale, folks.

With fracking, or hydraulic fracturing of rock formations to extract natural gas, we're setting ourselves up for an environmental disaster of epic proportions -- and much of it the result of an inability to develop rural economies. Residents in upstate New York and central Pennsylvania are desperate for income, and the gas companies are happy to write checks for mineral rights. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania and New York are in the middle of state budget crises. The prospect of tax revenue from fracking is apparently more than enough to offset environmental concerns.

In fairness, both states are paying attention to the risks of water contamination, but they may both conclude that a little water contamination is a small price to pay for a balanced budget and increased rural incomes (at least for leaseholders). Pennsylvania is already experiencing pushback from gas companies who say the state's drilling regulations for drinking water protection in Marcellus Shale regions are unreasonably high. Complicating matters further is that both the New York City and Delaware Valley watersheds are likely to gain special protections, which leaves areas outside those regions more vulnerable to lenient standards. Ya gotta drill somewhere!

Nightmare scenarios abound. As High Country News summarizes, fracking has brought the West "polluted wastewater problems, large scale habitat disturbance, methane leaks from pipelines, and potentially serious health impacts that come along with the use of toxic chemicals in hydraulic fracturing." And as this article on Civil Eats suggests, even heavily regulated fracking could be enough to destroy much of New York's Hudson Valley farmland. After all, how many cattle quarantines or lost crops does it take to put a farmer out of business? Answer: not many.

Indeed, this latest episode, despite the fact that the cattle don't yet seem to have been harmed, will give little comfort to those who have to listen to industry assurances of safety. Would you want to eat cows that have been dining in fields covered in benzene and diesel fuel?

My hope is that the tactics the energy industry have used to exploit natural resources to great success out West won't work back East, where they are operating much closer to media and population centers. But betting on the strength of politicians' spines to resist doing the bidding of the energy industry never made anyone any money ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: New York; US: Pennsylvania
KEYWORDS: fracking; gas; hydrofracking; marcellus; shalegas
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To: Willie Green

What we have here is the latest fad among tight sphinctered women who insist on making a difference and are very gullible
They tire of the old water monitoring where they wade in creeks and count larvae.

They are all American enemies of the very worst sort. They are unfit to breathe American air or drink American water


21 posted on 07/10/2010 2:55:24 PM PDT by bert (K.E. N.P. N.C. +12 ..... The winds of war are freshening)
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To: Sacajaweau

Yep - there is a bigger picture here. The Administration is trying to cripple virtually all domestic energy sources that are economically feasible in their rush to kill the economy and push the bogus “green energy” agenda. I was only being slightly facetious in my earlier response - fracking truly is a cost/benefit issue. The idea of injecting chemicals underground raises issues; however, the track record of fracking is very good when you consider that the chemicals are usually being injected thousands of feet below the water table. Certainly it needs to be monitored, but these scare stories are designed to kill the practice, which has the effect of putting off limits VAST amounts of domestic energy sources. Just what’s going on with the BP Gulf disaster - clearly something has gone very, very wrong there, but thousands of wells have been drilled without this consequence. Looks like BP cut corners and deserves every liability it incurs, but is that a reason to kill offshore drilling? Only if you ignore cost/benefit analysis and are trying to pursue a greater Marxist agenda.


22 posted on 07/10/2010 2:58:55 PM PDT by rockvillem
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To: RobbyS

Darn - we may have to do what the forefathers did, drink beer.


23 posted on 07/10/2010 3:00:18 PM PDT by huldah1776
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To: bitterohiogunclinger

Sometime the purists are right. Smoking is very bad for your health. Still for hundreds of years, it wasn’t what killed people, and it gave lots of people a drug that made them function better. It is a dangerous world. I’d be more worried about T.B. that is resistant to drugs. We are always at war with nature. We win battles, but never the war.


24 posted on 07/10/2010 3:00:35 PM PDT by RobbyS (Pray with the suffering souls.)
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To: bitterohiogunclinger

Sometime the purists are right. Smoking is very bad for your health. Still for hundreds of years, it wasn’t what killed people, and it gave lots of people a drug that made them function better. It is a dangerous world. I’d be more worried about T.B. that is resistant to drugs. We are always at war with nature. We win battles, but never the war.


25 posted on 07/10/2010 3:00:35 PM PDT by RobbyS (Pray with the suffering souls.)
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To: Willie Green

I’m in the Marcellus region. There is also a lot of shallow well activity in which fracking is used. There have been wells contaminated. By far most are not. The Oil company is liable for any problems. They are required to notify the surface owners and test any wells within 1000’.


26 posted on 07/10/2010 3:01:24 PM PDT by Kinzua (Are you ready to admit that electing Obama was a mistake?)
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To: Willie Green

After the AGW scam, who can believe anything “scientists” from green (RED) sources say, anyway?

Any lie to advance the left agenda of destroying capitalism!


27 posted on 07/10/2010 3:02:06 PM PDT by JimRed (To water the Tree of Liberty is to excise a cancer before it kills us. TERM LIMITS, NOW AND FOREVER!)
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To: huldah1776

I always do that when I go overseas. Good for the digestion, too.


28 posted on 07/10/2010 3:03:14 PM PDT by RobbyS (Pray with the suffering souls.)
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To: jessduntno
The fracking gubmint keeps expanding and we’re all fracked...

the gubmint can get fracked

29 posted on 07/10/2010 3:05:11 PM PDT by upsdriver (ret.)
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To: Willie Green

Urban legend scare story. Everything and anything can kill you. There is no total safety guarantee, government regs or no. Don’t move off your couch. You might die. IF you don’t move off your couch you might die. Good luck.


30 posted on 07/10/2010 3:05:16 PM PDT by SaxxonWoods (Gone Galt and loving it)
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To: Willie Green

The article is utter nonsense by fear-mongers with political agendas.

Fracking is benign...and is commonplace in Texas...land of cattle.

Fracking takes place **MILES**, yes, Miles beneath drinking water. Fracking is entirely safe at those depths.


31 posted on 07/10/2010 3:05:57 PM PDT by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: JimRed

Greens are often the kind of people who would get freaked if they had to kill a chicken, and clean it for the pot. But they don’t mind picking it up wrapped in a grocery store.


32 posted on 07/10/2010 3:08:16 PM PDT by RobbyS (Pray with the suffering souls.)
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To: RobbyS

In point of fact, in much of the world, like the Third World and the T*rd World areas, water is usually not safe to drink.

Only in developed nations where pollution can be controlled, and water purified, does man have safe water.

In most of America, do NOT drink directly from surface water. Parasites and diseases are common in surface waters.

Tap water, on the other hand is treated and IS safe. Technology, and Western societies - science based, linear logic, patriarchal culture - gotta love ‘em.


33 posted on 07/10/2010 3:09:23 PM PDT by GladesGuru (In a society predicated upon freedom, it is essential to examine principles,)
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To: Southack

An oil and gas company recently fracked a “shallow” well on my property, just over 200’ horizontally (min by law) from my water well. They drilled to a depth of about 2500’ and fracked in several zones from that depth upward. In this case, less than 1/2 mile down. I still have a great water well (tested). I don’t really care for the eyesore though.


34 posted on 07/10/2010 3:10:35 PM PDT by Kinzua (Are you ready to admit that electing Obama was a mistake?)
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To: Willie Green

Can’t drill our own oil...

Can’t drill for our own natural gas...

Yep - energy independence is REALLY what the LEFT wants (/extremesarcasm off)


35 posted on 07/10/2010 3:17:33 PM PDT by TheBattman (They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature...)
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To: Kinzua

You haven’t filled out your profile, so I have no idea what state you are in. Or country.

By and large, shallow oil is gone. Deep oil is still plentiful.


36 posted on 07/10/2010 3:17:54 PM PDT by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: GladesGuru

The sanitation engineer is civilization’s unsung hero. It occurs to me I know of many famous people who contributed to “progress” but I don’t know the name of the men who created the water/sewerage system for the City of London/New York. But their achievement was as important as that of the men who built the Panama Canal.


37 posted on 07/10/2010 3:18:49 PM PDT by RobbyS (Pray with the suffering souls.)
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To: bitterohiogunclinger; Willie Green
Indeed, this latest episode, despite the fact that the cattle don't yet seem to have been harmed, will give little comfort to those who have to listen to industry assurances of safety. Would you want to eat cows that have been dining in fields covered in benzene and diesel fuel?

- The cows haven't been harmed... so why the quarantine??

- Benzene and diesel fuel come from fracking?? Isn't diesel fuel a refined product? Is there a naturally occurring refinery underground?

38 posted on 07/10/2010 3:20:28 PM PDT by DTogo (High time to bring back the Sons of Liberty !!)
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To: DTogo
Petroleum diesel, also called petrodiesel,[5] or fossil diesel is produced from the fractional distillation of crude oil between 200 °C (392 °F) and 350 °C (662 °F) at atmospheric pressure, resulting in a mixture of carbon chains that typically contain between 8 and 21 carbon atoms per molecule.[6]
39 posted on 07/10/2010 3:23:17 PM PDT by DTogo (High time to bring back the Sons of Liberty !!)
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To: Gondring
Thanks for the heads up. I was trying to find more specifics for the waste water release near the cattle and ran across some articles that might interest you. The first was very interesting in that it states: "In Pennsylvania, more than three million residents rely on private wells for essential sources of potable water – second most in the entire nation behind Michigan.": About that Water in Your Well That's a lot of wells, and it says that 20,000 new wells are drilled every year in PA! So, I can see the concern for protecting the ground water. But the head of the DEP has posted some observations that fracking is having no impact: In His Own Words: PA DEP Regulator Separates Fact from Fiction on the Marcellus I would be interested to know what you think of these articles, which seem to be from the pro-drilling faction. I am still seeking any technical reports regarding the issue, but it is slow going.
40 posted on 07/10/2010 3:24:51 PM PDT by epithermal
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