Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

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
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-71 next last

1 posted on 07/10/2010 2:22:29 PM PDT by Willie Green
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: epithermal

Ping.


2 posted on 07/10/2010 2:26:07 PM PDT by Gondring (Paul Revere would have been flamed as a naysayer troll and told to go back to Boston.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Willie Green

Funny thing is that the lefties will whine about the Cheney Exception when it was actually Bill Klinton’s Administration that let the gas industry be unregulated by the Clean Water Act.


3 posted on 07/10/2010 2:28:29 PM PDT by Gondring (Paul Revere would have been flamed as a naysayer troll and told to go back to Boston.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Gondring

The fracking gubmint keeps expanding and we’re all fracked...


4 posted on 07/10/2010 2:30:09 PM PDT by jessduntno (A-Stan: "illiterate peasants in caves, ruled by "warlords" ... not a target for "nation building.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: jessduntno

Yeah, and there’s no fracking free lunch here - it’s a cost/benefit analysis.


5 posted on 07/10/2010 2:31:49 PM PDT by rockvillem
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Willie Green

This is one point of view. Contamination from fraking is rare.


6 posted on 07/10/2010 2:32:17 PM PDT by RobbyS (Pray with the suffering souls.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: RobbyS

“Indeed, this latest episode, despite the fact that the cattle don’t yet seem to have been harmed..”

In other words, despite no evidence at all “we’d” like you to get upset over something that “we” “feel” is wrong....


7 posted on 07/10/2010 2:37:06 PM PDT by bitterohiogunclinger (America held hostage - day 507)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: RobbyS
Completing your sentence...

This is one point of view. Contamination from fraking is rare or common...we really don't know because complaints are often settled out of court by the oil/gas companies and there's not extensive regulation of the industry.

I think that any true conservative would believe that nobody has a right to inject something--which might intrude into your water supply--into the ground without revealing what it is. There's also an obligation against negligence, which means sufficient study and protection should be required prior to threatening other peoples' health and property rights.

8 posted on 07/10/2010 2:41:33 PM PDT by Gondring (Paul Revere would have been flamed as a naysayer troll and told to go back to Boston.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Willie Green

Willie,
Just how deep are these wells that they’re frackin’? How close to the surface are they placing the charges? I run a water company servicing 500 homes. When they started drillin’ gas wells near by, I expressed my concern. They told me that the gas wells would be thousands of feet deeper than my 275’ deep wells, and there was no concern at all about contamination.. nonetheless, as I was leaving their engineer’s office I mentioned that if they screwed up, I was gonna be the new owner of their company. So far, 10 years, no problems, but also no frackin’ that I’m aware of. Edge of the Cuyahoga River Valley.


9 posted on 07/10/2010 2:41:46 PM PDT by Dr. Bogus Pachysandra ( Ya can't pick up a turd by the clean end!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: bitterohiogunclinger

Yeah, it’s ridiculous that they won’t let me shoot my gun in the town square. They stopped me even before they determined whether I’d hit anyone...can you believe it?!


10 posted on 07/10/2010 2:42:19 PM PDT by Gondring (Paul Revere would have been flamed as a naysayer troll and told to go back to Boston.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Willie Green

—more parts-per-trillion hogwash from the environmental nutcase crowd-—


11 posted on 07/10/2010 2:42:56 PM PDT by rellimpank (--don't believe anything the MSM tells you about firearms or explosives--NRA Benefactor)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: RobbyS

If a fracking leak was really that dangerous to cattle, 90% of the cattle in Texas would be dead. Heck its common for ranchers to be happy to get drilling pit water spread over their pastures. Even if there is a saltwater spill on the pasture, unless its ongoing, there’s little harm to cattle or the grasses. Just because they let us eat em, don’t mean they’re stupid enough to drink poison water!


12 posted on 07/10/2010 2:43:52 PM PDT by dusttoyou (libs are all wee wee'd up and no place to go)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Willie Green
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.

Migration of fruits, nuts, and flakes out of New York City is a far greater threat to the Hudson Valley than fracking!

13 posted on 07/10/2010 2:44:07 PM PDT by Gondring (Paul Revere would have been flamed as a naysayer troll and told to go back to Boston.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: RobbyS

My guess is that the Whitehouse is “Obama approving” every negative article that can be written for oil, gas, coal etc...He still doesn’t get it....WE ALL USE ALL OF THESE IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER.


14 posted on 07/10/2010 2:45:06 PM PDT by Sacajaweau (What)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: dusttoyou

LOL...it’s not necessarily the cattle or grasses that are harmed...it’s the red-blooded American carnivores who eat them!

I had a site (not fracking, but another “harmless waste” case) where the family stopped eating their own cattle when they started having more and more cancer in the family..but that didn’t stop them from selling their stock to others.


15 posted on 07/10/2010 2:47:02 PM PDT by Gondring (Paul Revere would have been flamed as a naysayer troll and told to go back to Boston.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: Gondring

(That case was in Iowa...not implying Texas.)


16 posted on 07/10/2010 2:48:21 PM PDT by Gondring (Paul Revere would have been flamed as a naysayer troll and told to go back to Boston.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: Gondring

Strata where water is are likely to be segregated. Yes, contamination does happen, but not often, and if it does it is because —as in the Gulf—some bookkeeper was trying to cut corners. Better get used to relatively clean water. Human beings, really, have never known anything else.


17 posted on 07/10/2010 2:52:45 PM PDT by RobbyS (Pray with the suffering souls.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Willie Green

Natural gas comes in contact with humans and livestock every day. Its why it is called natural.


18 posted on 07/10/2010 2:53:54 PM PDT by edcoil (OK, so what's the speed of dark?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Willie Green

Upon what premises, and with what level of animal contamination was this action taken?

It sounds like GangGreen bureaucrats doing another Cloward/Piven action.


19 posted on 07/10/2010 2:54:06 PM PDT by GladesGuru (In a society predicated upon freedom, it is essential to examine principles,)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Willie Green
First livestock quarantine EVER for a gas spew. Hmmmmm

Sabotage!!

20 posted on 07/10/2010 2:54:45 PM PDT by Sacajaweau (What)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-71 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson