Cheri Campbell sends this picture from back home in Ormsby, Pennsylvania, part of Keating Township. The sign reads: "This road is being rebuilt, paved and designed using green technology. All funding is provided by Chesapeake Energy."
Chesapeake Energy has been fracking for natural gas in Pennsylvania, not without trouble. Campbell, a librarian, also sends the state notice about the paving work, for 2.5 miles. She says that would cover the distance between Chesapeake Energy's leases on the 10-mile-or-so road. You could see the story as fracking making the roads better, or you could see it as fracking overwhelming the roads.
That kind on-the-one-hand, on-the other calculation is a lot of how the industry seems to work.
Across the border in Ohio, Governor John Kasich has made a habit of saying a single company could blast $1 trillion in oil and gas from the shale underground in his state -- an estimate the AP calls "exorbitant." On a much smaller scale, very poor Youngstown, Ohio, has had trouble paying for the paving of its streets. But the state is sending over money to fix the roadway used as an entrance by a fracking company, which, by the way, is promising to bring more than 100 jobs to Youngstown. Youngstown is one of many places in the U.S. to report earthquakes near wells where companies have pumped fracking wastewater back into the ground, and it's one of the places considering an outright ban on fracking.
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I'm from PA and I am in the Highway Construction Industry. What is most infuriating about that sign it that it's implying that Chesapeake rebuilt the road out of the kindness of their heart or some sort of community give back. No, that HAD to rebuild the road! That no good terrible very bad thing called regulation REQUIRED them to rebuild the road when they got a permit drive heavy water truck upon heavy water truck on a road that wasn't designed to take that kind of weight.
It sounded like they were trying to bribe the public into "liking" them for fracking.
"Seeeee…. we're giving you a new road, now we aren't just cute cuddly (green) puppies with adorable puppy breath bringing joy to your lives".
Thanks for your "in the loop" comment.
you're welcome, sadly a lot of townships in the northern tier of the state are practically welcoming the truck traffic because at least they know that the road will be repaired and they haven't been able to because of lack of state and local funding in recent years.
Agree.
Using Green as a cloaking device for self-induced infrastructure failure and using "Drill, baby, Drill" as a smoke screen for the obvious at-the-pump fact that the US won't be getting any special gas prices regardless where the oil comes from, that's Big Oil at the top of its PR game and profits keep marching sweetly into the same pockets as always.
yes, but we'd be hiring American workes, not workers in other countries. Oil is a commodity, priced in the international market. It's JOBS!
What I can't understand is we are will to sacrifice current jobs for some promise in the far future. If renewals are so good, don't you think the private sector would have jumped into them? How are sales of the Chevy Volt going, even with large subsidies?
Tom.
http://www.plugincars.com/chevy-volt-sales-still-sizzling-nissan-leaf-slumps-april-2012-120922.html
There is no sacrifice and we have solar and wind now.
A man you can trust, Bob Lutz says the electric car is about energy security http://energypolicyinfo.com/2012/04/bob-lutz-electrification-is-key-to-energy-security-strategy/
Some recent facts since April. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2012/0705/Plug-in-vehicles-taking-the-slow-road-to-1-million-in-sales
The larger issue is, while alternatives are hopeful, they need to be accepted by the public and competitive in price.
What is your real motive for saying we should not develop electric cars, solar, wind and hydroelectric? Let me guess, you have stock in natural gas frackers?
Come on man, even the self named "conservative" Bob Lutz says this is a mistake to oppose electric cars. This is a valid ENERGY SECURITY issue and I want one, people want one, so why do you put up such opposition?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/boblutz/2012/01/30/chevy-volt-and-the-wrong-headed-right/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/boblutz/2012/04/15/a-real-oil-security-strategy-for-u-s-would-boost-electrification-of-transport-sector/
People in PA seem to be against fracking, but you say F U we're fracking and here's your f' ing road.
Yes, there were what they consider sizzling Volt sales in April, but you want me to look at Oh, it's going to be a slow pace to get a million. Come on!
You're talking sales figures, but with more jobs, say in solar, wind, hydroelectric people can BUY cars, but the "wrongheaded right" keeps opposing it in favor of dangerous and dirty non renewable resources.
They wont be happy till the frack up the whole country
Frackin' the USA!
Then of course any of their execs that actually live in America will move to more fertile ground.
Recent stories in the news have shown Texas is in the hole for nearly $2 billion dollars for additional damages done to roads due to increased heavy truck traffic.
http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2012/07/06/while-profits-are-up-in-the-eagle-ford-shale-so-is-road-damage/
Arkansas has seen similar damages but only totaling $450 million.
http://newswire.uark.edu/article.aspx?id=18039
Any attempt to get them to pay their fair share has been met with cries about "killing jobs" and outright socialism. They argue that if the gas industry be asked to cover their entire cost of doing business that they will leave the state. Where are they going to go? They get the same reception wherever they go.
B.S.! They'll leave when the gas is gone and stick taxpayers with the bill for the roads and cleaning up their crap afterwards.
The chorus of "killing jobs" should be examined instead of singing along.
I've known some truckers, wonderful people, helpful people, kindly even heroic people. They are part of the wear and tear on roads and supposed to stay in the right lane unless passing. Supposed to keep their damage to the right lane, not all lanes.
Well, they get told deadline or else, so they drive faster in left lanes. Then complain about costs, which are due to heavy loads and the trucker should not pay that, the company whose product they haul should pay those fees. The taxpayers pay for roads, we like having good roads, safe roads. Business uses taxpayer funded roads, another "perk" because of jobs? Well, jobs are off shore more, so why should they not pay more for roads?
Oh yeah, fracking is the dirtiest form of energy of late and on top of that, the wasting of water and putting those chemicals into the earth is just f'in stupid! We have solar and wind, which are renewable, do not use water of contaminate soil and or ground water. Come on… the local jobs, too! And no, they won't give us a discount.
I'm sorry, from everything that I've read about fracking it's potential use doesn't out-way the horrendous damage to people & environment that it causes!
Chesapeak Energy and the other Fracking companies are doing far more harm than any good they could ever do.
we've had to endure see beloved Chesapeake signs all over Arlington TX over the years....even in our Christmas decorations....how ironic that loving they neighbor equates with fracking thy neighbor now I blog about the horrors of living in a Chesapeake town on BarnettShaleHell
If you want green energy, then you want natural gas and that means fracking.
It's the only viable alternative to coal.
Bull hockey! Nothing green about it. Its worse than coal.
Air quality in rural Wyoming being compared to Houston and Los Angeles and the sole contributors as determined by a 3 year ongoing study by the state of Wyoming? The Jonah gas field and Pinedale Anticline gas fields. Also daily detections of elevated levels of VOC and BTEX chemicals.
http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_2cc97385-25f0-5bb2-a436-607d30498de6.html
Similar detections to that of Wyoming only this time the study was done by NOAA. The source? Weld County Colorado gas fields.
http://researchmatters.noaa.gov/news/Pages/COoilgas.aspx/
Also in Colorado. The School of Public Health there determined through a study there persons living in proximity of hydraulic fracturing were subject to dangerous levels of VOC and BTEX chemicals as well as silica and associated respiratory illness.
http://attheforefront.ucdenver.edu/?p=2546
OSHA just released a hazard alert warning hydraulic fracturing workers that they are being exposed to dangerous levels of silica at job sites many of which are located in urban areas and as little as a few hundred feet from peoples homes.
http://www.osha.gov/dts/hazardalerts/hydraulic_frac_hazard_alert.html
That's true of the sites where the fracturing is being done but if there is anything that environmental scientists agree on it's that replacing coal with nat gas in basepower generation is a big positive for the nation as a whole.
if you're talking only emissions at the power plant, and restricting that to carbon dioxide, then anything is better than coal. but it is worse than that.
coal is almost pure carbon with a small percentage of contaminants. the carbon is converted to carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) by burning. one of the contaminants is sulfur and this burns into various oxides that, when you add water, turn into acid rain. another contaminant is mercury released as a vapor that we get to inhale with the rest precipitated by the (acid) rain to collect in lakes and streams and fish and mammals like us.
"clean coal" (a lovely term, that) is just coal with most of the contaminants removed. the carbon remains.
of course gas is cleaner but still contributes a huge amount of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. the contamination of groundwater is an additional problem. it appears to be permanent as no method is known (at least to me) for cleaning contaminated groundwater short of just pumping it out until it runs clean again. and you have to treat all that pumped-out water.
the problem is fossil fuel. renewables have to be used in the long term. at least until we get fusion working (i hear it's still only ten tears away).
Get the frack out of PA.
Not a lot of people realize this, but vehicles damage roadway in proportion to the Fourth Power of axle load. So a 30,000 lb three axle water bowser (10,000 per axle) does the same damage to a road as 625 4000 lb SUVs (2000 lbs per axle). A 4 axle 18 wheeler carrying 60,000+ lbs of drill pipe for a total legal load of 80,000 lbs? 10000 SUVs.
It's likely they're not simply being good neighbors, they're trying not to get picketed.
so, by your argument my 1000lb/axle car is doing 1/16 the damage of an suv.
thanks for the ammunition.
The only workable and safe green energy equation:
Green Energy= (Solar energy+Wind energy+hydro energy)
@Carrie, you may want to ask the good people of China about how "green" or safe hydropower is:
http://www.internationalrivers.org/campaigns/three-gorges-dam
Water here has been steadily contaminated for years because of landfills. The landfill is just about the highest point in Lancaster County now. Fracking forces pollution into the underground water system wherever it is done. The powers that be won't be happy until none of us have any clean water to drink.
And they own whatever is left of clean water.
Been in the oil & gas biz on the leasing side for about a year now, and it's mind-blowing to know that we are currently sitting on twice as much natural gas here on top of the Marcellus and Utica formations as Saudi Arabia currently has oil. The profits don't necessarily give us "energy independence" as a nation at all, as the resources are sold on the world market to the highest bidder and often result in fattening of offshore accounts of these multi-national energy companies. Wind, solar, and geothermal are definitely cleaner and more sustainable...but oddly enough they still remain prohibitively expensive to bring to market, wind by a factor of 10 in many cases. Doesn't really seem like its an accident either, but hey, what do I know?
I'm the person who took the picture (@olevia is my Twitter handle). This is actually a pretty significant road in the area because it leads to Kinzua Bridge State Park, which is one of the major tourist attractions in the long-struggling region. The state has actually devoted a great deal of money in recent years to rejuvenating the park after a freak tornado blew down the railroad bridge - once one of the highest in the world - in 2003. Doesn't hurt that the state House majority leader is from nearby Elk county, so I'm guessing that pressure was placed on Chesapeake from Harrisburg to fix this road fast.
This area has been the center of the oil industry in PA for over a century. I grew up with Pennzoil oil leases down the road & Quaker State up the road. I lost ancestors to oil well explosions & fumes from mis-capped wells (my mother's great-grandfather was a prominent oilman in the area.
Nearby Bradford, PA (NOT Bradford County) is where two houses blew up from methane fumes caused by fracking gone very wrong.
We may remember how The Sierra Club was taking millions of dollars in donations from Chesapeake Energy and acting as a mouthpiece to promote how "green" natural gas was.
http://science.time.com/2012/02/02/exclusive-how-the-sierra-club-took-millions-from-the-natural-gas-industry-and-why-they-stopped/