Here's my tribute to Herbster from No Frack Mountain.
We will miss YOU. The poetry? Ehhh.
Monday PA Environment & Energy NewsClips - 3.18.24
20 hours ago
We implement state-of-the-art environmental protection across our operations;The ink isn't even dry on their fracking pledge and they get caught filling in not only a wetland - but an exceptional value wetland to boot. And the DEP decided to fine them a hefty $40,000.00.
A clash between the state's environmental regulators and gas driller Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. over the cause and solution for contaminated water wells in Dimock Twp. escalated on Tuesday, with the Cabot CEO accusing the Department of Environmental Protection of waging "a public war against us."It appears Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. has taken issue with Pennsylvania's DEP Secretary John Hanger. On that one matter, i.e. Mr. Hanger's overall performance, we are on the same page.
"Any of you boys want to shoot, now's the time. There isn't one of us that doesn't want to be someplace else. But this is what we do, who we are. Live for nothing, or die for something. Your call." - J. R.
When asked for comment, Brian Grove, director of corporate development for Chesapeake, issued this statement, noting that "Chesapeake places the highest priority on health, safety, and environmental protection in our operations.The thing that absolutely blows my mind is that the methane reading after the well's water turned brown was 1,920 times higher than the baseline reading in the tests done in December 2008, yet Chesapeake claims there is no connection between their drilling activity and the newly-contaminated well. Let's see; the well is ~1/2 mile from the drillpad, and the lateral wellbores extend up to 5,000 feet or more from that location. One of the articles states a lateral wellbore goes directly under the Bohlander's property, where there evidently was a whole lotta fracking going on. Voila!! It's as obvious as the nose on Pinocchio's face; no connection whatsoever.
The unholy alliance between Big Business and Big Government is destroying this country. The "small people" do matter. The time is approaching when the little guy is going to rise up and take back what is rightfully theirs. Some people are waking up. Some people are getting angry. Some people care about the future of this country.
Karl Borton today will be named the first director of River Common Programming and Outreach, according to sources who requested anonymity.Anonymity and nepotism are still alive and well in Wilkes-Barre, PA.
You may have heard the news in the last two days about the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig which caught fire, burned for two days, then sank in 5,000 ft of water in the Gulf of Mexico. There are still 11 men missing, and they are not expected to be found.
The rig belongs to Transocean, the world’s biggest offshore drilling contractor. The rig was originally contracted through the year 2013 to BP and was working on BP’s Macondo exploration well when the fire broke out. The rig costs about $500,000 per day to contract. The full drilling spread, with helicopters and support vessels and other services, will cost closer to $1,000,000 per day to operate in the course of drilling for oil and gas. The rig cost about $350,000,000 to build in 2001 and would cost at least double that to replace today.
The rig represents the cutting edge of drilling technology. It is a floating rig, capable of working in up to 10,000 ft water depth. The rig is not moored; It does not use anchors because it would be too costly and too heavy to suspend this mooring load from the floating structure. Rather, a triply-redundant computer system uses satellite positioning to control powerful thrusters that keep the rig on station within a few feet of its intended location, at all times. This is called Dynamic Positioning. The rig had apparently just finished cementing steel casing in place at depths exceeding 18,000 ft. The next operation was to suspend the well so that the rig could move to its next drilling location, the idea being that a rig would return to this well later in order to complete the work necessary to bring the well into production.
It is thought that somehow formation fluids – oil /gas – got into the wellbore and were undetected until it was too late to take action. With a floating drilling rig setup, because it moves with the waves, currents, and winds, all of the main pressure control equipment sits on the seabed – the uppermost unmoving point in the well. This pressure control equipment – the Blowout Preventers, or ‘BOP’s” as they’re called, are controlled with redundant systems from the rig. In the event of a serious emergency, there are multiple Panic Buttons to hit, and even fail-safe Deadman systems that should be automatically engaged when something of this proportion breaks out. None of them were apparently activated, suggesting that the blowout was especially swift to escalate at the surface. The flames were visible up to about 35 miles away. Not the glow – the flames. They were 200 – 300 ft high.
All of this will be investigated and it will be some months before all of the particulars are known. For now, it is enough to say that this marvel of modern technology, which had been operating with an excellent safety record, has burned up and sunk taking souls with it.
The well still is apparently flowing oil, which is appearing at the surface as a slick. They have been working with remotely operated vehicles, or ROV’s which are essentially tethered miniature submarines with manipulator arms and other equipment that can perform work underwater while the operator sits on a vessel. These are what were used to explore the Titanic, among other things. Every floating rig has one on board and they are in constant use. In this case, they are deploying ROV’s from dedicated service vessels. They have been trying to close the well in using a specialized port on the BOP’s and a pumping arrangement on their ROV’s. They have been unsuccessful so far. Specialized pollution control vessels have been scrambled to start working the spill, skimming the oil up. In the coming weeks they will move in at least one other rig to drill a fresh well that will intersect the blowing one at its pay zone. They will use technology that is capable of drilling from a floating rig, over 3 miles deep to an exact specific point in the earth – with a target radius of just a few feet plus or minus. Once they intersect their target, a heavy fluid will be pumped that exceeds the formation’s pressure, thus causing the flow to cease and rendering the well safe at last. It will take at least a couple of months to get this done, bringing all available technology to bear. It will be an ecological disaster if the well flows all of the while; Optimistically, it could bridge off downhole.
It’s a sad day when something like this happens to any rig, but even more so when it happens to something on the cutting edge of our capabilities. The photos that follow show the progression of events over the 36 hours from catching fire to sinking.
Given my previous modest involvement in environmental advocacy, I have been asked by a number of people to weigh in on the issue. Up to now I have been reluctant, as I was not knowledgeable enough to have an answer. I’m still not sure that I am.I couldn't have said it better. Please - stick to what you know, Doc.
As was later discovered, many of Enron's recorded assets and profits were inflated, or even wholly fraudulent and nonexistentSo, when we hear EOG Resources tell us that environmental damage was minimal or contained after 16+ hours of an unchecked blowout, we should believe them - right??
"I don't know how they can conclude that, when hydraulic fracturing has never harmed a drop of drinking water," countered Jim Smith, spokesman for the Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York. "In 60 years of hydraulic fracturing across the country, more than a million wells have been fracked, including 14,000 in New York."Well, Jimbo, here's the part you left out. The vast, vast, vast majority of those wells were vertical wells only. One hole, straight down, one frack. What's going on today with horizontal hydrofracturing is a whole new ballgame, and you know it.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” - Theodore Roosevelt