Earlier this week, we told you about efforts to use polluted water from abandoned mines to frack natural gas wells. Some energy companies say they’d be happy to use mine drainage rather than fresh water but they want to be sure that they won’t also get stuck with liability for cleaning up the mine water [...]
In the Susquehanna River Basin, just one well can use an average of 4.4 million gallons of water during a frack job, which can last several days to a week. The majority of that water comes from Pennsylvania’s rivers and streams. Meanwhile, more than 4,000 miles of streams polluted by abandoned coalmine drainage flow through Pennsylvania’s forests, [...]
Environmentalists opposed to the construction of a natural gas pipeline in Northeast Pennsylvania are pinning their hopes on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to halt the project. “The Army Corps of Engineers could make a big difference here,” said Faith Zerbe, a field biologist with the Delaware Riverkeeper Network. The Riverkeeper Network opposes the [...]
Two protestors in northeast Pennsylvania are trying to halt the clearing of trees to make way for an expanding natural gas pipeline in Pike County. Allison Petryk and Alex Lotorto handcuffed themselves to a gate in the Delaware State Forest on Monday and Tuesday, blocking access to tree felling crews. The Tennessee Gas Pipeline Northeast [...]
The Delaware River Basin Commission continues to remain silent on new drilling regulations for the watershed. The commissioners may be waiting for New York to complete its regulatory update. But the most recent news from Gov. Cuomo’s office did not indicate those rules are coming soon. In the meantime, pipeline construction in Pennsylvania is booming. [...]
Making sure the Delaware River’s water gets distributed among the 15 million people who depend on it requires cooperation among four states. Today, Pennsylvania DEP, along with New York, New Jersey, Delaware and New York City, announced the renewal of their commitment to a compact established by a U.S. Supreme Court decree back in 1954. [...]
One of the first Marcellus Shale wells to be permitted in the Delaware River watershed was neither horizontal, or hydraulically fracked. But environmentalists who challenged the permit issued by the Department of Environmental Protection say state regulators who approved the project took less than 35 minutes to review it and did not consider its impact [...]
Governor Corbett praised the release of $16.9 million federal dollars to continue dredging the Delaware river. In his annual budget address, Corbett said 75,000 jobs would be created or saved by the deepening project. The controversial dredging of the Delaware is opposed by environmentalists. But Corbett says the widening of the Panama Canal means larger [...]
Delaware state Representative John Kowalko, a liberal Democrat from New Castle County, says he has gathered more than 1,100 signatures on a petition that opposes drilling for natural gas in the Delaware River watershed. No shale gas exists in the state of Delaware. But the nation’s second smallest state recently became a major player in [...]
Delaware Riverkeeper Maya von Rossum tells StateImpact PA that her sources say the Delaware River Basin Commission has decided to cancel Monday’s scheduled meeting and planned vote. The DRBC could not be reached to confirm the move, which would put off a decision on the Commission’s proposed natural gas drilling rules. But von Rossum says [...]
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