The Environmental Protection Agency has issued draft permits for fracking wastewater disposal wells in both Elk and Clearfield counties. The state has only five permitted and operating underground injection disposal wells that take wastewater from oil and gas production. The EPA has issued final permits for two injection wells in Warren County, but they’re under appeal [...]
A new $20 million coal cleaning operation is opening its doors in Clearfield County. WJAC reports the plant will ultimately employ around 20 people: The new plant sits on a 50-acre site and will utilize water from Clearfield creek. The creek will assist with cleaning mid-vol bituminous coal that is mined into a higher quality [...]
Imagine what you’d like to do when you retire. Spend more time with the grand kids, travel, garden, relax? A lot of retirees living in natural gas drilling areas of the state have these same dreams. But they’re now finding themselves fighting the gas industry. Rick and Marianne Atkinson live on 100 acres in Brady [...]
The head of the state’s township supervisor’s lobbying organization has come out in favor of greater regulation of deep injection wells. David Sanko, executive director of the Pennsylvania State Association of Townhip Supervisors, recently wrote a letter to Gov. Corbett asking him to adopt measures similar to the state of Ohio. Deep injection wells that [...]
Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Krancer says deep injection wells are not “an issue that the Commonwealth needs to grapple with at this time.” Deep injection wells take fracking waste water and send it deep within crevices of the earth. Only five of these wells are currently operating in the state. Krancer wrote a letter [...]
A group of residents from Brady Township, Clearfield County say their residential neighborhood is not the place for a deep disposal well taking Marcellus wastewater. The residents, and local politicians from Clearfield County met with EPA officials earlier this week to discuss a plan to build a new disposal well in the tiny city of [...]
Update 9:30 pm: A blockade against natural gas drilling at a well site in Moshannon State Forest that began Sunday morning has been dismantled by police, according to protestors. Witnesses say police used a cherry picker to remove two tree-sitters this evening at about 8:30 pm. Alex Lotorto, a protester who joined a rally at [...]
Drillers use deep injection wells as one option to dispose of drilling waste deep underground. EnergyWire reports on the number of waste disposal wells under construction, or pending permits, in Ohio and Pennsylvania. “In Ohio, 16 new wells are under construction to take waste “brine” from oil and gas wells. Seven have been granted permits but [...]
The Environmental Protection Agency announced a Consent Agreement Thursday with Exco Resources, which operates a deep injection well in Bell Township, Clearfield County. Deep well injection sites are used to dispose of frack waste water by shooting the liquid deep into the ground at high pressure. The Clearfield County well had failed sometime in early [...]
State Rep. Bud George, a Democrat from Clearfield County, has introduced a bill to halt the construction of any new deep injection wells for two years. These wells are used to dispose of frack waste water and have recently caused earthquakes in Ohio and Arkansas. The U.S. Geological Survey will be releasing a new report [...]
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