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Trevor Rees-Jones made his name as a Dallas fracking pioneer. So what’s he doing bankrolling political attack ads halfway across the country? January/February 2012 – ONE EVENING THIS PAST OCTOBER, I went prospecting for natural-gas man Trevor Rees-Jones at the posh Hilton Anatole in Dallas. He was there to receive the Robert S. Folsom Leadership Award, a philanthropic prize that in recent years has gone to the likes of Laura Bush and former Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman. Unlike these prominent Texans, Rees-Jones is not widely known outside his hometown. If the name sounds familiar, it’s probably because he shares it with the British bodyguard who survived Princess Diana’s fatal car crash. The Trevor Rees-Jones that I came to see is the billionaire founder of Dallas-based Chief Oil & Gas and perhaps the fastest-rising star in Republican big-money circles. The dinner’s PR people had promised me tickets, then changed their minds and, with apologies, yanked them. So … Continue reading
The dispute centered on a risky method of extraction. California’s governor has sued oil companies throughout his career, but he now talks of tossing cumbersome regulations to revive the economy January 29th, 2012 – Reporting from Sacramento — Late last year, Gov. Jerry Brown pushed for a top state regulator to ease key requirements for companies seeking to tap California’s oil. The official balked. Relaxing rules on underground injection, a risky method of oil extraction common in the state, would violate environmental laws, wrote Derek Chernow, then head of the Department of Conservation, in a memo obtained by The Times. The process, in which a rush of steam, water and chemicals flushes oil from old wells, had been linked to spills, eruptions and a Kern County worker’s death. The federal government had asked the state to tighten its regulations, but the oil industry complained that the stringent rules were killing … Continue reading
February 1st, 2012, LAPORTE, Pa. — A pipeline operator assured federal regulators it would minimize using eminent domain against private landowners if given approval to lay a 39-mile natural gas pipeline in northern Pennsylvania’s pristine Endless Mountains. Yet the company was readying condemnation papers against dozens of landowners even as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was considering its application for the $250 million MARC 1 pipeline. Within two days of winning approval, Central New York Oil & Gas Co., LLC went to court to condemn nearly half the properties along the pipeline’s route — undercutting part of the regulatory commission’s approval rationale and angering landowners who are now fighting the company in court. Eminent domain would give the company the right to excavate and lay the 30-inch diameter pipeline on private property. Landowners would not lose their properties and would be compensated. The dispute could foreshadow eminent domain battles to … Continue reading
January 31st, 2012 – Americans use the term “Saudi Arabia of” to describe an abundance of something — usually energy. We are the “Saudi Arabia of wind,” the “Saudi Arabia of coal,” the “Saudi Arabia of efficiency,” and so on and on and on.I’ve come to jokingly use this term for anything really huge. (We are, after all, the Saudi Arabia of climate denial.) So in true American spirit, I am dubbing yesterday’s speech by Saudi Arabia’s Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi the Saudi Arabia of bold statements. In a speech at the Middle East and North Africa energy conference in London on Monday, Al-Naimi — who once called renewable energy a “nightmare” — hailed energy efficiency and solar as important investments, called global warming “real” and “pressing,” and explained that drilling for oil “does not create many jobs.” We know that pumping oil out of the ground does not create many jobs. It … Continue reading
October 18th, 2011 – In one of the most interesting and little-known feats of investigative reporting about Marcellus Shale gas drilling in Pennsylvania this year, NPR/WHYY reporter and blogger Susan Phillips tracked down the quarantined cows from Tioga County to find out what became of them. When the cows were first quarantined, it was big news, but Phillips is the first and only reporter to get an update on the cows’ health. The news is not good. Her full blog post is here. Phillips tracked down the cows’ owners and learned that a flowback pit (called a “pond” by drilling companies but full of substances not usually found in ponds, including fracking chemicals along with heavy metals and salts from the shale) had leaked through its plastic liner and flowed into the cows’ pasture. “When tested, the water contained chloride, iron, sulfate, barium, magnesium, manganese, potassium, sodium, strontium and calcium. The spill … Continue reading
January, 4th, 2012, COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — In Ohio, geographically and politically positioned to become a leading importer of wastewater from gas drilling, environmentalists and lawmakers opposed to the technique known as fracking are seizing on a series of small earthquakes as a signal to proceed with caution. Earthquakes caused by the injection of wastewater that’s a byproduct of high-pressure hydraulic fracture drilling, aren’t new. Yet earthquakes have a special ability to grab public attention. That’s especially true after Saturday’s quake near Youngstown, at magnitude 4.0 temblor strong enough to be felt across hundreds of square miles. Gov. John Kasich, a drilling proponent, has shut down the wastewater well on which the quake has been blamed, along with others in the area, as the seismic activity is reviewed. “Drilling’s very important for our economy and to help us progress as a state, but every single person in the Mahoning Valley … Continue reading
January 13th, 2012 – Filters used to strain wastewater from oil wells that test positive for low-level radiation are being rejected at municipal landfills in the oil patch. Williston landfill operator Brad Septka said since June he’s rejected 23 oilfield loads that set off the landfill’s Geiger counter. Septka said the filters as well as the empty bags used to haul fracture treatment sand set off the counter. Radioactive waste is regulated by the North Dakota Health Department. Scott Radig, who manages the state’s solid waste program, said radioactive waste that exceeds the allowable level is supposed to be shipped to Colorado, where there’s an approved disposal facility. Radig said the detectors also are used at municipal landfills in Dickinson and in McKenzie County, as well as at four special waste facilities. He said operators there also have turned away loads. He said the state’s acceptable level for radioactivity is … Continue reading
January 9th, 2012 – Natural gas companies are trying to sell fracking as the solution to all of the economic ills ailing this country. Supposedly fracking can bring the economy out of its current stagnation by creating uncountable new jobs, without running up government deficits, and even save us from global warming in the process. So how come local residents and environmentalists oppose fracking? The short answer is that fracking does not create local jobs, it lowers property values, and pollutes the water we drink and the air we breathe. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking for short, is drilling for gas buried more than a mile under ground in hard rock layers. In order to extract the gas, a toxic cocktail of chemicals is pumped deep into the ground to fracture the rock. In recent years, the state of Pennsylvania has embraced the fracking boom and more than 4,500 wells have … Continue reading
January 9th, 2012 – Industry Called Upon to Set Up Foundation to Conduct Needed, Independent Research WASHINGTON, Jan. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Leading U.S. medical experts urged today that the rapid expansion of unconventional natural gas drilling (known as “hydrofracking”) for natural gas extraction be paused so that necessary research can be done into the potential harmful effects on human health. The comments were made in statements delivered today at a conference sponsored by the nonprofit Physicians Scientists and Engineers for Healthy Energy (PSE) and the Mid-Atlantic Center for Children’s Health and the Environment (MACCHE). The major PSE/MACCHE event brought together public health experts, physicians, epidemiologists and other experts from various research areas to address the public health aspects of unconventional natural gas drilling. In opening remarks, Adam Law, M.D., Weill Cornell Medical College, and the founding board member of Physicians Scientists and Engineers for Healthy Energy, said: “When it comes to hydrofracking, our … Continue reading
January 15th, 2012, MARIETTA, OH – Youngstown has become the poster city for potential injection-well-induced earthquakes. But the Ohio Department of Natural Resources points to the success of 176 other injection wells throughout the state that have no history of inciting earthquakes. Cue Washington County. The Southeast Ohio county — an area that the ODNR has said is less prone to earthquakes than the rest of the state — hadn’t had an earthquake with an epicenter in the county before Oct. 24, 2010. Since then, there have been four, with magnitudes ranging from 2.6 to 3.1 — large enough to feel, but small enough not to damage homes and infrastructure. Sound familiar? Like Mahoning County, Washington County shares another trait — brine-injection wells. Injection wells are a disposal method for brine, a salty chemical byproduct of natural-gas fracking and oil drilling. The ODNR has said it does not believe deep … Continue reading
January 14th, 2012 – Residents of shale country in many states are severely impacted by both water and air pollution, a new peer-reviewed study has found. Right now, Texas residents say they are getting no response from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) or the industry, despite over four days of calls reporting misery and illness from contaminated air. Texas bloggers write that local media have been “given the red light” on covering the sickening vapors being vented from Chesapeake Energy tanks. Area residents, including citizen gas drilling experts, believe the tanks contain flowback (toxic fracking waste) from gas drilling operations in the Barnett Shale. Two reports are excerpted below, with links to photos and video. The first, “Arlington fracking flowback misery day four,” is from Texas Sharon on her award-winning blog “Bluedaze.” The second post is from “Dallas Drilling”: “Day four of contaminated air spill, residents sick, local media told … Continue reading
January 12th, 2012 – As regulators and environmentalists study whether hydraulic fracturing can damage the environment, industry scientists are studying ways to create longer, deeper cracks in the Earth to release more oil and natural gas. Energy companies are focused on boosting production and lowering costs associated with so-called fracking, a technique that uses high-pressure injections of water, sand and chemicals to break apart petroleum-saturated rock. The more thoroughly the rock is cracked, the more oil and gas will flow from each well. The world’s largest oilfield service providers are leading the search for new technologies, with some companies focused on splintering the rock into a web of tiny fissures, and others seeking to create larger crevices in the richest zones. “I want to crack the rock across as much of the reservoir as I can,” said David Pursell, a former fracking engineer who’s now an analyst at Tudor Pickering … Continue reading
