Wednesday, Feb 04th
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Environmental News Archive
What comes to mind when you think of fracking? Perhaps it’s images of tap water being lit on fire or stories of families suffering health problems after nearby wells are fracked.
Indeed, the health and environmental impacts of fracking are being documented, but it’s important to know that fracking is a catalyst for widespread negative consequences. This list includes five effects of fracking you may not have heard about.
Hydraulic fracturing contaminating the drinking water is a concern to the Lubbock community.
The city of Lubbock held its monthly Board of Health meeting Friday afternoon at the Civic Center to discuss the updates on hydraulic fracturing.
Board member and activist LeAnn Lamb-Vines said studies have shown that methane has been found in drinking water in different areas of Texas.
“After we were reviewing these studies, we did find what I consider sufficient, scientific grounds for serious concerns,” Lamb-Vines said. “There has been some strong, scientific evidence for groundwater contamination coming from these studies.”
In past years, these remote gray waters of the Alaskan Arctic saw little more than the occasional cargo barge and Eskimo whaling boat. No more.
This summer, when the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Bertholf was monitoring shipping traffic along the desolate tundra coast, its radar displays were often brightly lighted with mysterious targets.
A huge report was published on Oct. 10 by Los Angeles County that'll likely open the floodgates for hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") for unconventional oil and gas in the Monterey Shale basin. The report, as it turns out, was done by LA County in name only.
As the Los Angeles Times explained, the study found "no harm from the method" of fracking as it pertains to extracting shale gas and oil from the Inglewood Oil Field, which the Times explains is "the largest urban oil field in the country."
A Duke University-led study has found high levels of arsenic, selenium and other toxic elements in coal ash effluents and in North Carolina lakes and rivers located downstream from coal-fired power plants’ settling ponds.
Researchers collected and analyzed more than 300 water samples from 11 lakes and rivers for the study, which was published today in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology.
A new report1 on shale resources and hydraulic fracturing from the Government Accountability Office (GAO)—an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress—concludes that fracking poses serious risks to health and the environment.
The report, which reviewed studies from state agencies overseeing fracking as well as scientific reports, found that the extent of the risks has not yet been fully quantified and that there are many unanswered questions and a lack of scientific data.
September 2012 tied for the warmest September on record worldwide, scientists from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration announced Monday.
The average global temperature in September was 60.21°F, or 1.21°F above the 20th-century average. This was the same reading measured in September 2005.
Most areas of the world experienced higher-than-average monthly temperatures, including central Russia, Japan, western Australia, northern Argentina, Paraguay, western Canada and southern Greenland.
The Wizard of Oz was spot on when he said to “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” That’s good life advice if you fall into the “Ignorance is bliss” camp. For a journalist though, it’s doing the exact opposite that’s a sin qua non for the job.
Kevin Begos of the Associated Press took the Wizard’s advice to heart in his July 22 story titled, “Experts: Some fracking critics use bad science.”
Citing “Gasland” director Josh Fox’s viral video “The Sky is Pink” as an example, Begos wrote, “Opponents of fracking say breast cancer rates have spiked exactly where intensive drilling is taking place — and nowhere else in the state…But researchers haven’t seen a spike in breast cancer rates in the area.”
According to a Department of Justice press release, Chesapeake Appalachia pled guilty on Oct. 5 in federal court to three violations of the Clean Water Act related to natural gas drilling activity in northern West Virginia. The press release states:
Chesapeake pled guilty to three counts of “Unauthorized Discharge into a Water of the United States” in that it discharged sixty (60) tons of crushed stone and gravel into Blake Fork, a water of the United States, on at least three different occasions in December of 2008.
Chesapeake also admitted that after discharging the stone and gravel that it then spread the material in the stream to create a roadway for the purpose of improving access to a site associated with Marcellus Shale drilling activity in Wetzel County, West Virginia.
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