by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica

For the first time, a scientific study has linked natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing with a pattern of drinking water contamination so severe that some faucets can be lit on fire.

The peer-reviewed study [1], published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, stands to shape the contentious debate [2] over whether drilling is safe and begins to fill an information gap that has made it difficult for lawmakers and the public to understand the risks [3].

The research was conducted by four scientists at Duke University. They found that levels of flammable methane gas in drinking water wells increased to dangerous levels when those water supplies were close to natural gas wells. They also found that the type of gas detected at high levels in the water was the same type of gas that energy companies were extracting from thousands of feet underground, strongly implying that the gas may be seeping underground through natural or manmade faults and fractures, or coming from cracks in the well structure itself.

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State Senator David Carlucci will be hosting a showing of Gasland, a documentary by filmmaker Josh Fox tonight at 7 pm at Warwick's Alfred Wisner Library.

The film focuses on communities in the United States impacted by natural gas drilling and, specifically, a stimulation method known as hydraulic fracturing.

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Reposted from Yes! Magazine

What started as one couple’s fight against gas drilling in their local park grew into a campaign to save more than 700,000 acres of Pennsylvania forest.

When Jen Slotterback found a well pad stake in a local park, she realized the forest would soon be taken over by a natural gas drilling—and the controversial process hydraulic fracturing, or fracking—unless she did something to stop it. Jen and her husband Jim had never organized a campaign before, and they only had 11 days before the vote on whether to allow fracking in the park. In that short amount of time and with the help of the Responsible Drilling Alliance (RDA), the Slotterbacks mobilized their community to save Rider Park. The board unanimously voted against the drilling.

by Nicholas Kusnetz, ProPublica

When Chesapeake Energy lost control of a Marcellus Shale gas well in Pennsylvania on April 19, an emergency response team from Texas was called in to stop the leak. By the time the team arrived more than 13 hours later, brine water and hydraulic fracturing fluids from the well had spewed across nearby fields and into a creek.

Why did a team have to be called in from Texas, as the Scranton Times Tribune has reported [1]? That's what we're trying to figure out.

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I just sent this letter to my representative in the House of Representatives.  It will be interesting to see what sort of response I receive.

Congresswoman Hayworth,
On Saturday afternoon, you called our house to invite us to participate in a tele-conference.  We would like to have participated in this conference, particularly because we view much of what the Republican-controlled House has been doing with reference to the budget in a negative light.

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