Governor Corbett’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission issued its final report with recommendations on Pennsylvania’s drilling policies in late July, 2011.
The 137-page document contains 96 recommendations for changes to drilling policies and regulations. It also includes background on Marcellus Shale drilling.
A complete, annotated version of the report is available here.
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, [...]
At a press conference to promote a new government transparency website, Governor Corbett was reluctant to answer questions about a free vacation he took to Rhode Island last year, paid for by a friend who does business with the natural gas industry. StateImpact Pennsylvania first reported the trip, which was originally omitted from Corbett’s filing with the [...]
A coalition of environmental and good government groups critical of Pennsylvania’s natural gas drilling says the state has moved too fast, and it needs to slow down the Marcellus Shale boom. The Citizen’s Marcellus Shale Commission was created in response to Governor Corbett’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission, which released its own report in July. The [...]
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett has said he wants to make decisions about drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale based on good science. But the effort to research the impact of shale drilling has been hampered by lack of funding, lack of data and claims of bias. During the next several months, lawmakers in [...]
Maya von Rossum, the head of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, and a commissioner with the Citizen’s Marcellus Shale Commission, announced today that she’s resigned from her post as a commissioner because the rest of the group refused to support a drilling moratorium. Von Rossum announced her decision through a press release. “The failure to articulate [...]
This blog post is part of StateImpact’s on-going, reader-submitted burning questions about natural gas drilling. So far, we have tackled water testing, whether or not fracking can lead to earthquakes, the status of the state’s deep injection wells, all things water and the fate of a quarantined herd of beef cattle. Today’s question comes from Kristen Mosbrucker. Mosbrucker wants to know where the [...]
Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor Jim Cawley is bopping around the state visiting factories that he says are benefitting from the Marcellus Shale boom. Cawley visited the Weiler Corporation’s Cresco plant on Tuesday. Weiler contributes parts to the pipeline industry. Karl Weiler told the Pocono Record that Marcellus Shale accounts for “about 3 percent” of his business. [...]
Missed this week’s top energy story? Confused by headlines about drilling and sexually transmitted diseases? QUICK RECAP: On Monday, Capitolwire reported Department of Community and Economic Development Secretary Alan Walker is pushing for expanded drilling in state forests. Walker said the royalties would bring in billions, “solve just about every economic problem we have.” This, [...]
Here’s one more visualization from this month’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission report. A graphic on page 35 shows drilling activity during the first six months of 2011, broken down by county. A few things jump out.
Governor Corbett’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission report has been public for a bit more than a week now. The day after the 137-page document was released, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette’s Pipeline created a word cloud from of its language. This technique visualizes text by displaying words more prominently based on their frequency of use. We [...]
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