Posted on 12/26/2011 6:33:39 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The Great North American Energy Renaissance is going full-bore, and it offers finally the prospect of true American energy independence. This renaissance is due to the application of relatively recent technologies, such as horizontal drilling and fracking, to hitherto commercially unviable sources of fossil fuel deposits, such as oil sands and shale rock formations.
The first piece reports the continued economic transformation to North Dakota due to shale drilling operations. It describes how mini-communities are springing up on the Northern Prairie to house the (primarily male) workers. The story talks about two such "man camps," each housing around 3,700 workers. The problem, you see, is that North Dakota -- with an unemployment rate of 3.5%, the lowest in the country and less than half the national average -- has so many fossil fuel energy jobs open that men are flooding in from elsewhere in the nation, and flooding in so quickly that the housing for them has to be cobbled together on short notice.
SNIP
The second story concerns New York. New York State -- famous for its hordes of "progressive liberals" who claim to worry so much about the working class -- could also be economically humming by creating those high-paying blue-collar jobs so desperately needed in this "he-cession." It could also be doing its part in freeing this country from its reliance on foreign sources of energy -- from oil produced in places such as the Middle East and Venezuela to solar panels produced in China.
But no -- of course, New York's environmentalists are up in arms about fracking (and every other method of energy production that actually works -- i.e., reliably produces low-cost energy). This has led to quite a battle, indeed.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I believe there may be some valid concerns in NY state concerning the proximity of many reservoirs to where such work would take place. In any case, the case on the Hudson against Con Edison developing along the shore years ago signaled to corporations that NY state was very unfriendly to business. The icing on the cake was demanding millions from a company for polluting the river with chemicals that weren’t deemed toxic at the time they were drained into the river - it was akin to issue somebody a speeding ticket for driving 55 mph last year in an area that was reduced to 45 mph yesterday.
As you can tell I'm not much on their environmental position.
I saw all the signs while upstate last summer regarding no drilling and everyone has a right to their opinion just don't heat with NG or oil or your opinion is hypocritical, stand on your principles.
The ENTIRE apparatus of New York state government, I believe, is being used to set up the Cuomo kid, the current governor, for a Presidential run.
I hope he fails, as a great man once said.
FTA:
The warring sides seem to be mirrored in Gov. Cuomo’s very soul. He plays the New Deal Democrat who wants jobs for the proletariat, but he also plays the New-Left Hippie Environmentalist oh-so-concerned about the ecosystem. He has positively begged both sides to be moderate, saying, “I know that the temperature is high. We have a process. Let’s get the facts. Let the science and the facts make the determination, not emotion and not politics.”
Then he’s not qualified for the jobs. Elect someone who can make a decision.
Huh?
My point was that I think if they did drill they’d simply be looking for someone else to supply their drinking water instead (from my limited understanding of the matter). NY state has plenty of hydroelectric potential, and in the past has done its share of mining, etc. - I believe there are still enough desperate people in the state to push for this if it would benefit them economically. Upstate NY has been dying for decades, and it is only costing them electoral votes with each census to ignore that.
Sharing among the states. Interesting. New York State isn’t interested in exploiting it’s own recources. Screw ‘em. Enjoy your cold winter while you feel good about your pristeen environment.
The GE case (still in the news because of the pollution in the silt today); GE had to later pay tons of money for remediation of environmental impact for things that were completely legal to dump at the time it was done.
NY is probably last on a long list of places for GE to invest in new business for that very reason.
I think that it would help prompt the self-indulgent energy-takers be more supportive of the nation -- more patriotic, in the truest sense of the term -- if the federal government eliminated the state tax deduction for federal taxes. After all, the governors of those states are already facing resistance to higher taxes. If the taxpayers of those states could no longer write off the state taxes, those taxpayers would become even more adamantly opposed to higher taxes.
Taking away the deduction for state taxes would thus force the "progressive" states into a dilemma: cut programs, or enhance revenues by increasing economic growth (which would have to involve easing regulations). But the former option would cost the progressive politicians a lot of support from their base.
His soultion is the flat tax.
I’ve hiked in NY in areas where the woods had been cut & re-cut several times to feed the furnaces fed by locally-mined iron to make cannonballs for the American Revolution and Civil War. They’ve mined nickel and micas as well, right in Bear Mountain/Harriman State Park, only stopping when either the ore ran out or mining further west proved more lucrative (they couldn’t compete with purer content and larger concentrations found elsewhere). Even the Catskills was renowned for its fur industry, which included stripping trees to tan the hides, and its “coopers” (hence “Cooperstown”). Today they still have massive apple orchards and farms in upstate NY.
I really believe this is about keeping drinking water pure; I’m not opposed to extracting the gas, but would support it more if that was addressed. As an NJ resident, I have no horse in the race anyway.
“Pennsylvania and Ohio both have plenty of lakes and aquifers but they seem to have reached an accommodation with the two needs.”
I believe the proximity of them is the problem in NY. I think NY should certainly try to drill; I was simply trying to describe the hesitation/opposition, rather than the oversimplified “they hate machinery” approach. Even the libs in NY would rather be wealthier/paying-less-taxes libs.
One of the big problems New York faces is that it has legislated and regulated itself into a position where it relies on increasingly expensive sources of energy imported from places further and further away.
Fracking for natural gas has its benefits and risks, but NY is also dealing with a lot of political pressure to shut down the nuclear power plant at Indian Point (the plant is coming up for a Federal permit renewal soon). LILCO/LIPA decommissioned the Shorham plant on Long Island a while back under similar pressure. Now these places pay among the highest utility rates in the nation.
Valid concerns my arse. Except for a recently released unpeered review EPA study of possible water polution in Wyoming, there have been millions of wells produced with fracking over decades, which is done far below water tables and aquifers. It is all political. The left is trying to stop all use and exploration of carbon based fuels including oil, gas, and coal.
Share it or sell it? Did you read the article. The author suggests doing the following:
"I think that it would help prompt the self-indulgent energy-takers be more supportive of the nation -- more patriotic, in the truest sense of the term -- if the federal government eliminated the state tax deduction for federal taxes. After all, the governors of those states are already facing resistance to higher taxes. If the taxpayers of those states could no longer write off the state taxes, those taxpayers would become even more adamantly opposed to higher taxes.
Taking away the deduction for state taxes would thus force the "progressive" states into a dilemma: cut programs, or enhance revenues by increasing economic growth (which would have to involve easing regulations). But the former option would cost the progressive politicians a lot of support from their base."
Well water in Dish, Texas has undergone 3 different studies; two showed increases in various toxins.
Well water in Carrollton, Texas, is now coming up muddy.
Neighbors of mine were forced to evacuate their homes (which are ALL electric, mind you), due to the smell of gas in the house. They have a well right across the street. Several are experiencing persistent migranes, nosebleeds, etc.
Not everyone who wants to strike a balance is an ideologue/tree-hugging/anti-energy independence freak. I'm living on top of the Barnett Shale, have wells all around me - in short, I'm living it. I started out in this process on the side of the producers. After seeing how they lie, relentlessly, I no longer trust anything they say.
Doesn't help that my water, which used to be clear, is now coming out a funky color, either.
Thus, the lack of proper casing in the old wells, combined with the presence of numerous pits that were badly managed, were the likely source of the contamination that the EPA found. It is thus a mystery why the report nonetheless insisted that, in Pavillion, “data indicates likely impact to ground water that can be explained by hydraulic fracturing.”
Another key difference: The shale being targeted in the Marcellus is usually a mile or more below the surface; the area around Pavillion is unusual in that commercial quantities of natural gas were located at depths as shallow as 1,100 feet, in rock strata relatively close to groundwater resources.
Over the last 60 years, the fracking process has been used more than 1 million times in the United States. And the rules being proposed by the Department of Environmental Conservation have rigorous well-casing requirements, as well as setback measures that would prevent what happened in Wyoming from happening in New York."
The issue under discussion in NY (and the subject of this thread) is fracking for natural gas as part of the Marcellus gas find. Yes, as the article indicates, shoddily drilled oil and gas wells can cause pollution, but that is not the issue here.
In fact, the EPA report gives no reason for doing so. The situation in Wyoming bears little resemblance to how drillers would tap the Marcellus Shale, the vast formation that stretches from New York to Ohio and West Virginia.
Right off the bat, the report notes the many decades-old oil and gas wells around Pavillion that would never pass muster today; in some, the surface casing (which is used to protect groundwater) was “as shallow as 110 meters below ground surface,” even though water wells in the area ran “as deep as 244 meters below ground surface.” In other words, the shoddy old oil and gas wells may have allowed some of the fracking fluids to migrate into drinking-water supplies.
That factor simply isn’t present in New York. Furthermore, the report cites “at least 33 surface pits previously used for storage/disposal of drilling wastes” near the Pavillion site — pits that the researchers found had contaminated nearby groundwater.
As far as your personal situation is concerned, has there been any study or investigation to the causes of the situation you describe? Is fracking involved? How old are the wells?
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