To start our fracking round-up today, here's an animation created by New York University professor Jay Rosen's graduate journalism class, about how hydrofracking works.
This is a must see - don't even think about scrolling:
(H/T to the Patriot-News for pointing out the video)
Drilling forum
Natural gas drillers say drilling in New York could be a windfall for local governments, reports Steve Reilly at the Press & Sun-Bulletin. Gathered at a meeting in Owego last night, industry reprepresentatives told a crowd that property taxes on fossil fuels produced by drilling wells could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars:
John Holko, president of Lenape Energy, said he estimated a single natural gas well in New York could result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax revenue to the school district and local governments where it is drilled. "In New York, the property taxes are basically dictated by the state. It's in the statute," he explained. "(Gas companies) have to pay the taxes ... on a unit-of-production basis." Production figures from each well are reported by gas companies to the state Office of Real Property Services, which then sends a tax bill to the company based on those numbers. "If the well is drilled in your town," he said, "the money paid by that gas company comes back to that town, that county, that fire district."
Reilly notes though that drilling revenues wouldn't be money for nothing - audience members at the event cited "methane mitigation and road damage" as downsides of drilling, that could necessitate public expenditure to address.
AG gives private talk about energy
New York's attorney general spoke to power producers in Troy this week, pushing for what he calls "safe energy," at an unpublicized event. Nick Reisman reports at State of Politics:
Schneiderman has been making an effort to take on what he considers to be potentially environmentally hazardous energy concerns, including the Indian Point nuclear plant in Westchester County and the push for a controversial natural-gas extraction method known as hydraulic fracturing.
EPA steps into Pa.
Federal regulators want Pennsylvania to take more care with its drilling operations, reports Andrew Maykuth at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Six drillers have been ordered to disclose their wastewater practices, in the latest federal directive designed to keep drillers on a tighter leash:
The federal actions appear to be a response to growing political pressure on Congress to regulate gas drilling and the controversial hydraulic fracturing process, which involves the high-pressure injection of fluids and sand into a well to liberate trapped oil and gas.
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