TagYates * Radiation

Casey: Voluntary fracking chemical registry ‘not enough’

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The release of a national online registry of hydraulic fracturing chemicals this week has received qualified praise but has not stemmed calls for more disclosure about the natural gas extraction process. Fracfocus.org went live on Monday with 24 participating companies, including many natural gas operators active in Pennsylvania. The voluntary registry was developed by the Ground Water Protection...

Shale gas is not a credible ‘new green message’

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It’s confusing as to how shale gas extraction offers the oil industry “a new green message”, as it was suggested last week in an interview with Shell’s outgoing chairman. Look a little closer at shale gas and it comes with all the type of problems we’re coming to expect from extracting unconventional hydrocarbons. Now that we’ve got much of the easy stuff out...

Global Warming Threat: New Studies Suggest Natural Gas Is “Dirtier” than Coal

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As if on cue, a handful of recently released studies have found that fracking and the natural gas it extracts pose environmental dangers well beyond the issues currently being widely and heatedly discussed – not that radioactive waste water, contaminated wells and radium-laced fertilizer weren’t bad enough. The takeaway, from studies like the one released this week from Cornell University...

Methane Leaks Can Make Fracking Gas ‘Dirtier’ than Coal Or Oil

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ITHACA, N.Y. – Extracting natural gas from the Marcellus Shale could do more to aggravate global warming than mining coal, according to a Cornell study published in the May issue of the peer-reviewed journal Climatic Change Letters. While natural gas has been touted as a clean-burning fuel that produces less carbon dioxide than coal, ecologist Robert Howarth warns that we should be more concerned...

Food Chain Breach: Radioactive Sludge Used for Fertilizer on Farms

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The revelation that natural gas drilling companies are dumping radioactive wastewater into our rivers virtually unregulated was shocking enough, but now the New York Times is reporting that radioactive sludge is being used for fertilizer on our nation’s farms. You heard right: radioactive fertilizer – a direct line to the food chain. Has the whole world gone stark raving mad? Well, if not...

Foundation wants feds to take closer look at drilling in watershed

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SUNBURY – If Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection inspectors can’t cite gas-drilling companies for violations, maybe the federal government can. A petition filed April 4 and signed by more than 120 businesses, groups and elected officials asks federal Environmental Protection Agency officials to take a closer look at how Marcellus Shale drilling is affecting the Chesapeake Bay...

Don’t Drill in the Parks

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Ohio’s 74 state parks attract 50 million visits a year — more than four times the state’s population. These visitors include families throughout Ohio that take advantage of the parks’ recreational opportunities on land and water, sportsmen and sportswomen, and others who seek to appreciate our state’s natural beauty. They also include out-of-state tourists who contribute...

Pennsylvania Calls for More Water Tests

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Pennsylvania environmental regulators said Wednesday that they were calling for waste treatment plants and drinking water facilities to increase testing for radioactive pollutants and other contaminants, to see whether they are ending up in rivers because of the growth of natural gas drilling in the state. The move follows a March 7 letter that the federal Environmental Protection Agency sent to...

Fracking Rush Out of Control as Congress Stalls

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Evidence is rapidly building that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking — a controversial natural gas drilling technique — is far more dangerous to the environment than the natural gas industry or federal regulators want you to know. From the Rockies to the Gulf, from the Upper Midwest to Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Front there are complaints of fouled wells, stinking air, dead streams, earth tremors...

Halt fracking to safeguard potable water

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Given what’s known and not known about natural gas extraction from shale, drilling for gas near the Delaware River is a bad idea. But the Delaware River Basin Commission has proposed new regulations that would permit drilling. What it should be doing, instead, is imposing a moratorium on drilling until pending studies are concluded and more is known about the impacts of this practice...

Stuart H. Smith is an attorney based in New Orleans fighting major oil companies and other polluters.
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