Please sign the petition now to send the message to Virginia Outdoors Foundation that Fracking is an industrial activity with irreversible environmental risks and should be explicitly prohibited in future VOF conservation easements.
Month: April 2017
RAPPAHANNOCK RIVER [VA]
Rich in American heritage, a healthy Rappahannock River is important to the Chesapeake Bay. Unfortunately, the river and its clean water are threatened by industry interest in expanding fracking operations into Tidewater Virginia. The area overlies the Taylorsville Basin, a section of earth deep underground thought to contain shale gas deposits. Developing natural gas in this area would require drilling through the Potomac Aquifer, which supplies drinking water to three million people in Virginia’s Coastal Plain and Tidewater regions. The Virginia legislature and local municipalities must maintain and, where necessary, establish strong natural gas regulations and zoning to protect communities, river health and clean water.
https://www.americanrivers.org/endangered-rivers/rappahannock-river-va
Australian gas: between a fracked rock and a socially hard place
Shell chief executive Erik van Beurden, one of the big players in the Australian gas industry, recently admitted that “social acceptance [for our industry] is just disappearing”, while Shell Australia’s chairman Andrew Smith last year urged the industry to be less hubristic and more willing to collaborate.
https://phys.org/news/2017-04-australian-gasbetween-fracked-socially-hard.html
OPINION: Your insurance policy’s fine print, and fracking
I read this: damage resulting from “earth movement” has been excluded from my policy and “earth movement includes movement resulting from natural resource extraction activities, excavation, or pressure by surface or subsurface earth or fill.” Translation: My insurance doesn’t cover damage from fracking.
http://www.mydaytondailynews.com/news/opinion/opinion-your-insurance-policy-fine-print-and-fracking/6fRyfpvjw4mp1caBNXnJ6H/
Governor Brown’s "Resistance" Fails to Protect California Communities
Maryland’s Republican Governor Hogan today signed historic legislation to ban hydraulic fracturing. California Governor Jerry Brown continues to posture as a climate leader while failing to act on oil and gas extraction in the state. California uses methods like hydraulic fracturing to extract some of the dirtiest oil, dirtier than even Alberta tar sands oil, according to recent research.
Maryland’s fracking ban is fodder for campaigns against industry in Pa., Va.
When Gov. Larry Hogan signed a state fracking ban into law Tuesday, the stroke of his pen might have sent ripples beyond Maryland’s borders.
Environmentalists in Virginia, Pennsylvania and elsewhere are hoping that the action spurs decisionmakers in those states to give the controversial gas-harvesting practice a second thought.
Overwhelming evidence that fracking caused the Botswana earthquake
While the scientific community is still dithering as to the cause of the Botswana earthquake, the overwhelming evidence points to fracking (the extraction of natural gas and oil by fracturing the shale layer with chemicals and explosives) as the cause.
http://roodepoortrecord.co.za/2017/04/08/overwhelming-evidence-for-fracking/
Northern Cross sues Yukon gov’t for $2.2B over fracking moratorium
Northern Cross Limited has filed a lawsuit against the Yukon government, saying a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the territory has made its claims in the Eagle Plains area essentially useless.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/northern-cross-sues-yukon-fracking-moratorium-1.4061685
Congressman Pearce Pushes Fracking in New Mexico Despite Risk of Sinkhole Collapse …
U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) sent a letter this week urging the New Mexico Bureau of Land Management director to resolve administrative protests and fast-track a federal fracking plan near Carlsbad, N.M., even though fracking-induced earthquakes could trigger collapse of a massive brine well sinkhole in Carlsbad. Officials say there is already a high probability that the Carlsbad brine well will collapse, which they estimate would result in more than $1 billion in damages, as well as lost lives.
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2017/fracking-04-07-2017.php
Anti-fracking protesters target drilling rig company
Anti-fracking activists have chained themselves to a deep drilling company’s gates in protest to its links to fracking.
Reclaim the Power said it targeted Marriott Drilling in Chesterfield as it had links to a company behind the UK’s first horizontal fracking site.