Feb 28
2009

In response to a membership letter from the Sierra Club:

Dear Mr. Nilles, I am responding to your letter concerning switching from coal power to “clean” natural gas. Although I live near Scranton and the PA coal region in general, I am concerned when I hear of natural gas touted as a clean fuel. At this moment, Cabot Oil and Gas are extracting or pumping natural gas from two rigs on either side of my house, both about 500 feet away. The DEP has been investigating Cabot’s work on Carter Rd., Dimock Township PA, because natural gas has migrated into nine or ten water wells on our rural road in Susquehanna County. The process of hydrofracturing underground rock layers has contaminated the water sources for at least 12 homes in Dimock, and next week, they will be filming a documentary. One of our neighbors wells exploded on New Year’s Day, and Mrs. Fiorentino has no water supply. Cabot has refused to provide her with a new well, or to provide her and her relatives with drinking water or even non-potable water for washing. Her water well, according to her son, is 1,001 feet from a gas well, and PA law says they are responsible for water wells less than 1,000 feet away. The explosion had enough force to blow a 10×10 foot concrete slab off of her well.
My next door neighbor has both methane and coliform bacteria in her water, and had to pay for her own $6,000 filtration sistem. Several of my neighbors have flammable water. One of our neighbors has water that still tests as 65%methane after her well has been vented for a month. Kids have been sick, and pets have developed liver damage and had their hair suddenly fall out.  Forests that were part of our rural landscape have not only been cleared, but all their stumps removed, and all their soil taken away, to make drilling pads and pipelines and access roads to gas wells.  We have had three fuel oil spills, one of 800 gallons and two that were 100 gallons, all within view of our home,  all of which were the result of accidents by Cabot employees.  None of us think of natural gas as clean these days.

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Trackback  •  Posted in Bad Neighbors, Community Effects, Cost Externalization, General, On the Bleeding Edge  


Feb 27
2009

Wall Street Journal, 2/24/09
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123552499920765485.html

Natural-Gas Producers Launch Lobbying Group

U.S. natural-gas companies, hurt by a combination of booming supplies and falling demand, are banding together to promote their product with lawmakers and the public.

Such industry heavyweights as Newfield Exploration Co., Devon Energy Corp. and Chesapeake Energy Corp. will announce Wednesday the formation of the American Natural Gas Alliance to push broadly for more use of gas in power generation, transportation and other fields. The group says its more than 20 members account for roughly 40% of all U.S. gas output.

. . . . .

Producers and their investors are increasingly concerned that the market will remain oversupplied even when the economy recovers.

. . . . .

Policy makers have not embraced wide use of natural gas, in part because U.S. production was declining until the recent discoveries.

“In order to promote greater use of natural gas, you’ve got to convince people it’s abundant,” said Newfield Chairman and Chief Executive David Trice, who will serve as chairman of the new coalition.  Mr. Trice said he and other industry executives began talking last year about the need for a louder voice in Washington.

. . . . .

“The natural-gas industry lacks a unified voice,” energy analysts from Wachovia wrote in a recent report. The analysts noted that that the recently approved federal stimulus package included no significant support for the gas industry, and concluded that “the gas industry has utterly failed to address the demand side.”

The new alliance is not the first effort to promote the wider use of natural gas.  In 2007, Chesapeake Energy, the largest U.S. gas producer, helped create the American Clean Skies Foundation. The foundation has teamed up with the Sierra Club, among others, to promote gas as a cleaner alternative to coal.  Mr. Trice said his group will not attack coal or other energy sources, and merely aims to promote gas. The new group has hired trade-group veteran Rodney Lowman as its president. Mr. Lowman, 60 years old, previously ran the Abundant Forests Alliance, an advocacy group for the wood and paper-products industries, and the American Plastics Council.

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Trackback  •  Posted in Boone-Doggle, or, Why the Pickens Plan Stinks, General, Natural Gas Industry Lies