Life expectancy of the Marcellus Shale - Map of PA basins and plays
Matt Kelso, BA

What is the Life Expectancy of the Marcellus Shale?

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How long will unconventional oil and gas production from PA’s Marcellus Shale continue? The number of active wells may give us a clue.

 

We have recently updated the PA Shale Viewer, our map of unconventional wells in Pennsylvania. As I updated the statistics to reflect the updated data, I noticed that the number of wells with an active status ticked downward, just as it had for the previous update.

Pennsylvania Shale Viewer


View map fullscreen | How FracTracker maps work | Data Sources Listed Below

Wells on this map are shown in purple when zoomed out, but are organized by status as you continue to zoom in. The various statuses are shown below, as defined by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

  • Active – permit has been issued and well may or may not have been drilled or producing, but has not been plugged.
  • Proposed but Never Materialized – permit was issued, but expired prior to the commencement of drilling.
  • Plugged OG Well – permit issued and well has been plugged by well operator.
  • Operator Reported Not Drilled – permit issued, but operator reported to DEP that they never drilled the well.
  • DEP Abandoned List – an abandoned well that has been inspected by DEP.
  • DEP Orphan List – A well abandoned prior to April 18, 1985, that has not been affected or operated by the present owner or operator and from which the present owner, operator or lessee has received no economic benefit other than as a land.
  • DEP Plugged – a DEP Abandoned or DEP Orphan well that has been plugged by DEP,
  • Regulatory Inactive Status – a well status that is requested by well operator and has been granted by DEP. Well is capable of producing, but is temporarily shut in. Granted for initial 5 years and must be renewed yearly after first 5 years.
  • Abandoned – a well that has not been used to produce, extract or inject any gas, petroleum or other liquid within the preceding 12 months; for which equipment necessary for production, extraction or injection has been removed; or considered dry and not equipped for production.

Life Expectancy Stats

Summary of PA unconventional wells by status.

Table 1: Unconventional well locations in Pennsylvania by status. The determination of drilled locations was made by the presence of a spud date in the DEP dataset.

Currently, there are 10,586 well locations with an active status, 9,218 of which have been drilled. There 19,617 unconventional well locations in Pennsylvania when considering all status types, 10,652 of which have been drilled. The drill status was determined by whether or not there was an associated spud date in the dataset. The 13 plugged wells that lack spud dates likely represent some minor data entry errors of one sort or another, as a well would logically need to be drilled prior to being plugged.

Using the available data, we can see that 6.5% of drilled unconventional wells have been plugged, and an additional 6.9% have a regulatory inactive status, more commonly known as “shut-in” wells, leaving 86.5% of the drilled wells with an active status. Three wells are classified as abandoned, including two in Washington County attributed to Atlas Resources, LLC, and one operated by EQT Production Co. in Jefferson County. EQT submitted a request to convert the status of this latter well to inactive status in February 2016, but DEP has not made a decision on the application as of yet.

This chart shows the current status of unconventional wells in Pennsylvania, arranged by the year the well was drilled. Note that there are two abandoned wells in 2009 and one more in 2014, although those totals are not visible at this scale.

Chart 1: This chart shows the current status of unconventional wells in Pennsylvania, arranged by the year the well was drilled. Note that there are two abandoned wells in 2009 and one more in 2014, although those totals are not visible at this scale.

The top, solid blue line in Chart 1 shows the total number of unconventional wells drilled in Pennsylvania, which is based on the available spud date in the dataset. Focusing on this line for a moment, we can see a huge spike in the number of wells drilled in the early part of this decade. In fact, over 46% of the unconventional wells in the state were drilled between 2010 and 2012, and over 70% were drilled between 2010 and 2014. The 504 unconventional wells drilled in 2016 represents just over one quarter the total from 2011, when 1,959 wells were drilled. The 2017 totals are already slightly higher than 2016, with two months left to go in the year, but will not approach the totals from 2010 to 2014.

This drop-off in drilling since the 2011 peak is usually attributed to the glut of natural gas that these wells produced, and the Marcellus remains a highly productive formation, despite the considerable decline in new wells. Eventually, however, the entire formation will go into decline, which is already happening to the Barnett Shale in Texas and Haynesville Shale, among others, where peak production was several years ago in each case.

While all of three of these formations still produce significant quantities of gas, it is worth remembering that production is only half of the equation. In the Marcellus region, average costs were $6.6 million in 2014, which was projected to decrease to $6.1 million per well in 2015 according to a 2016 EIA document.

With the supply in the northeast outpacing demand, the gas prices stay low, and therefore production per well needs to be considerable to make a given well worthwhile.

Plugging Trends

Chart 2: Average days between spud date and plug date for unconventional wells in PA. Regulatory Inactive wells also include a plug date, and are included here.

Chart 2: Average days between spud date and plug date for unconventional wells in PA. Regulatory Inactive wells also include a plug date, and are included here.

Chart 2 shows the average number of days between the spud date and the plug date for wells that currently have either a plugged (n=694) or regulatory inactive (n=737) status. The regulatory inactive wells are relatively consistent in the days between when the well is drilled and temporarily plugged, which makes sense, as the operators of these wells typically intend for these wells to be shut-in upon completion.

However, it is interesting to note that wells are being plugged much more rapidly than they had been in the early part of the Marcellus boom.

Plugged unconventional wells that were drilled in 2005 (n=6) had an average of 3,081 days between these dates, while those drilled in 2016 (n=2) had and average span of 213 days.

The left (orange) axis represents the percentage of wells drilled in each year that are currently drilled. The right (blue) axis marks the total number of wells drilled in each year that are currently drilled.

The left (orange) axis represents the percentage of wells drilled in each year that are currently drilled. The right (blue) axis marks the total number of wells drilled in each year that are currently drilled.

Obviously there would be no way for a well drilled in 2016 to have been online for 3,081 days before being plugged. However, each of the six plugged wells drilled in 2005 were active for at least 1,899 days before being sealed, which is over five years of activity. In contrast, 99 of the 4,966 unconventional wells drilled in the previous 1,899 days have already been plugged, representing 5.2% of the total wells drilled during that time. This means that we are seeing more “misses” at this point in the formation’s history, where the amount of gas being produced doesn’t justify keeping the well open and offsetting the $6 million or more that it cost to drill the well.

We can also see that the rate of plugged wells increases dramatically after about ten years in operation. Forty-four out of 114 (39%) of unconventional wells that were drilled in 2007 are now plugged. That ratio grows two thirds of the nine wells drilled in 2005. In the industry’s boom period of 2010 to 2010, the raw number of plugged wells are elevated, peaking at 206 in 2011, but the percentage of plugged wells during those years remains proportional to the rest of the trend. The overall trend shows that an unconventional well in Pennsylvania that lasts 11 or more years is unusual.

The data show that older Marcellus wells in Pennsylvania are certainly in a state of decline, and are rapidly being plugged. While the overall production of the field remains high, it remains to be seen what will happen as the boom cycle wells drilled from 2010 to 2012 start to go offline in considerable numbers. Given that more and more wells are being drilled with very short production lives, will it continue to make sense for the industry to drill expensive wells in a formation where a return on investment is increasingly questionable? This course is difficult to predict, but economic models that take plentiful natural gas supplies for granted should consider taking a second look.

PA Shale Viewer Data Sources

Unconventional Violations
Source: PADEP
Date Range: 1-1-2000 through 10-2-2017
Notes: For the original data, follow link above to “Oil and Gas Compliance Report”. Latitude and longitude data obtained by matching with permits data (see below). There are 7,655 rows of violations data, including 6,576 distinct Violation IDs issued to 2,253 distinct unconventional wells. Due to the large number of records, this layer isn’t visible until users zoom in to 1:500,000, or about the size of a small county.

Unconventional Wells and Permits
Source: PADEP Open Data Portal
Date Range: 1-1-2000 through 10-2-2017
Notes: This data layer contains unconventional well data in Pennsylvania. However, not all of these wells have been drilled yet. This layer is categorized by well status, which includes Abandoned, Active, Operator Reported Not Drilled, Plugged OG Well, Proposed but Never Materialized, and Regulatory Inactive Status. To determine whether the well has been permitted, drilled, or plugged, look for the presence of an entry in the Permit Date, Spud Date, and Plug Date field, respectively. Altogether, there are 19,617 wells in this inventory, of which 10,586 currently have an active status. Due to the large number of records, this layer isn’t visible until users zoom in to 1:500,000, or about the size of a small county.

SkyTruth Pits (2013)
Source: SkyTruth
Date Range: 2013
Notes: Prior to December 2014, this map contained a layer of pits that were contained in Oil and Gas Locations file available on PASDA. However, that layer was far from complete – for example, it included only one pit in Washington County at a time which news reports mentioned that seven pits in the county were scheduled to be closed. Therefore, we have opted to include this crowdsourced layer developed by SkyTruth, where volunteers analyzed state aerial imagery data from 2013. SkyTruth’s methodology for developing the dataset is detailed in the link above. 529 pits have been identified through this effort.

Compressors and Processors (2016)
Source: EDF, CATF, Earthworks, FracTracker Alliance, EPA, PADEP, EIA
Date: 2016
Notes: This layer is based off of publicly available data, but is not published by any agency as a dataset. It is the result of a collaborative effort, and the data first appeared in map format on the Oil and Gas Threat Map (oilandgasthreatmap.com). Original sources include PADEP, US EPA, and US EIA. Compiling, processing, and geocoding by Environmental Defense Fund, Clean Air Task Force, Earthworks, and FracTracker Alliance. Contact Matt Kelso for more information: kelso [at] fractracker.org.

Environmental Justice Areas
Source: PADEP, via PASDA
Date: 2015
Notes: Environmental Justice (EJ) areas are Census Tracts where over 20 percent of the population is in poverty, or over 30 percent of the population is non-white. The program is designed to monitor whether there is a fair distribution of environmental benefits and burdens. In Pennsylvania, EJ areas tend to be clustered in urbanized areas, particularly near Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

Counties
Source: US Census Bureau, FracTracker Alliance
Date Range: 2011
Notes: This file was created by dissolving the Municipalities layer (below) to the county level. This method allows for greater detail than selecting the Pennsylvania counties from a national file.

Municipalities
Source: US Census Bureau
Date Published: 2011
Notes: Viewer must be zoomed into scales of 1:1,500,000 (several counties) or larger to access.

Watersheds – Large
Source: USDA/USGS
Date Published: 2008
Notes: Clipped to outline of Pennsylvania.

Watersheds – Small
Source: USDA/USGS
Date Published: 2008
Notes: Clipped to outline of Pennsylvania. Viewer must be zoomed into scales of 1:1,500,000 (several counties) or larger to access.

By Matt Kelso, Manager of Data and Technology, FracTracker Alliance

Indian Creek - Part of Bears Ears National Monument
Karen Edelstein

Nationally treasured federal lands face threats by oil, gas, and other extractive uses

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Should public, federal lands be opened up even further for extracting minerals, oil, and gas for private ventures? FracTracker’s Karen Edelstein discusses the past, present, and potential future of many of America’s cherished natural resources and wonders.

The United States is blessed with some of the most diverse natural landscapes in the world. Through foresight of great leaders over the decades, starting in 1906 — Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Benjamin Harrison, and Jimmy Carter – to name just a few — well over a half billion acres of wilderness have been set aside as national parks, refuges, monuments, and roadless areas. Some of the most famous of these protected areas include the Grand Canyon, Acadia, and Grand Tetons National Parks. In all, the federal government owns 28% of the 2.27 billion acres of land that the United States comprises. These federal lands are administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM): 248.3 million acres, the US Forest Service: 192.9 million acres, US Fish and Wildlife Service: 89.1 million acres, and National Park Service: 78.9 million acres. In addition, the US Department of Defense administers 11.4 million acres.

Why are federal lands at risk?

While most people assume that federal wild lands are forever protected from development and commercial exploitation, quite the opposite is true. For most of the past century, federal lands have hunted, fished, logged and grazed by private individuals and enterprises. In addition, and in the cross-hairs of discussion here, is the practice of leasing lands to industrial interests for the purpose of extracting minerals, oil, and gas from these public lands.

Provisions for land conservation and restrictions on oil and gas extraction, in particular, became more stringent since the inception of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970. However, environmentalists have watched in horror as the current administration in Washington has gutted the EPA, and installed climate change-deniers and corporate executives in high levels of office throughout a range of federal agencies. Notable is the appointment of Ryan Zinke as US Secretary of the Interior. Zinke, a former businessman, has a long record of opposing environmental viewpoints around extraction of oil, coal, and gas and cutting regulations. The League of Conservation Voters gives his voting record a lifetime score of 4 percent on environmental issues. As recently as this week, Joel Clement–one of Zinke’s senior advisors–resigned his post, citing, Zinke’s poor leadership, wasting of tax-payer dollars, and denial of climate change science.

Early in his tenure as Secretary of the Interior, Zinke initiated a review of 27 national monuments, a move that environmentalists feared could lead to the unraveling of protections on millions of acres of federal land, and also relaxed regulations on oil and gas exploration in those areas. Public comment on the plans to review these national monuments was intense; when the public comment period closed on July 10, 2017, the Interior Department had received over 2.4 million comments, the vast majority of which supported keeping the existing boundaries and restrictions as they are.

Federal lands under threat by Trump Administration


View map fullscreen | How FracTracker maps work

The above map shows which sites are under consideration for oil, gas, or coal extraction, or face boundary reduction of up to 88%. Click here to view this map full-screen with a legend, zoom in and click on areas of interest, etc.

Who should be allowed to use these resources?

Ranchers, loggers, and recreational hunters and anglers felt that the 1906 Antiquities Act had been over-interpreted, and therefore advocated for Zinke’s proposal. (The Act was the first U.S. law to provide protection for any general kind of cultural or natural resource.)

However, environmental advocates such as the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and others were adamantly opposed to opening up federal lands resources for extraction, citing the need for environmental protection, public access, and, importantly, concerns that the lands would be more easily transferred to state, local, or private interests. Environmentalists also argue that the revenue generated by tourism at these pristine sites would far exceed that generated by extractive resource activities. Attorneys and staff from NPCA and NRDC argued legislation in effect since the 1970s requires role for Congress in changing the boundaries of existing monuments. The President or his cabinet do not have that sole authority.

The Wilderness Society estimates that already, 90% of the land in the US West, owned by the Bureau of Land Management, is open for oil and gas leasing, while only 10% is set aside for other uses (Figure 2). According to information from Sourcewatch, in 2013, these lands included 12 National Monuments, Parks, Recreation Areas, and Preserves that had active drilling, and another 31 that might see possible drilling in the future.

Source: The Wilderness Society

Figure 2. Percent of land already available for oil and gas leasing in the West. Source: The Wilderness Society

What Zinke has Proposed

True to expectation, in August of 2017, Zinke issued a recommendation to shrink the boundaries of several national monuments to allow coal mining and other “traditional uses” — which appear to include large-scale timbering, as well as potentially oil and gas drilling. Sites include Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah (encompassing more than 3.2 million acres in lands considered sacred to Dine/Navajo people), Cascade-Siskiyou in Oregon, and Gold Butte in Nevada. According to Zinke’s report, Grand Staircase-Escalante contains “an estimated several billion tons of coal and large oil deposits”. Zinke lifted Obama-era restrictions on coal leasing on federal lands this past March, 2017. However, just last week, a federal judge ruled that the current Administration’s efforts to suspend methane emission restrictions from pipelines crossing public lands were illegal. These are merely a few of the Obama-era environmental protections that Zinke is attempting to gut.

Zinke has proposed decreasing the size of Bears Ears National Monument from the current 1.35 million acres to a mere 160,000, a reduction of 88%. The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, made up of thirty Native American tribes, condemned the recommendation as a “slap in the face to the members of our Tribes and an affront to Indian people all across the country.” The Navajo Nation intends to sue the President’s administration if this reduction at Bears Ears is enacted.

Bears Ears National Monument, designated by President Barack Obama, contains tens of thousands of cultural artifacts, and is facing not only a threat of boundary shrinkage, but also a relaxing use restrictions within the Monument area. The current President has referred to Obama’s designation of the monument as “an egregious abuse of power.” Grand Staircase-Escalante was designated by President Bill Clinton, and the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument was designated by Clinton and expanded by President Obama.

The recommendation details were not made public in August, however, and only came to light in September through a leaked memo, published in The Washington Post. In the memo, Secretary Zinke noted that the existing boundaries were “arbitrary or likely politically motivated or boundaries could not be supported by science or reasons of resource management.” The memo goes on to say that “[i]t appears that certain monuments were designated to prevent economic activity such as grazing, mining and timber production rather than to protect specific objects.” In addition, Zinke is advocating for the modification for commercial fishing uses of two marine national monuments: the Pacific Remote Islands, and Rose Atoll.

Lacking Specificity

According to the Washingon Post, Zinke:

… plans to leave six designations in place: Colorado’s Canyons of the Ancients; Idaho’s Craters of the Moon; Washington’s Hanford Reach; Arizona’s Grand Canyon-Parashant; Montana’s Upper Missouri River Breaks; and California’s Sand to Snow.

Perplexingly, the report is silent on 11 of the 27 monuments named in the initial proposal. One of which is the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument — over 725,000 square miles of ocean — in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

The report also requests tribal co-management of “cultural resources”  at Bears Ears, Rio Grande del Norte, and Organ Mountain-Desert Peaks. While one could imagine that greater involvement of indigenous people in the federal government’s management of the sacred landscapes to be a potentially positive improvement, the report is silent on the details. More information on tribal co-management and other options can be gleaned from a series of position papers written by the Property and Environment Research Center.

Of other note: Zinke is also suggesting the establishment of three new national monuments, including the 130,000-acre Badger-Two Medicine area in Montana, a sacred site of the Blackfeet Nation. Badger-Two Medicine was the site of a more than 30-year battle to retire 32,000 acres of oil and gas leases. The tribe prevailed, and the leases were canceled in November, 2016.

With potential lawsuits pending about boundary changes, galvanized push-back from environmental and tribal interests on resource management definitions for the targeted monuments, and general unpredictability on policy details and staffing in Washington, the trajectory of how this story will play out remains uncertain. FracTracker will continue to monitor for updates, and provide additional links in this story as they unfold.

Check out National Geographic’s bird’s eye view of these protected areas for a stunning montage, descriptions, and more maps of the monuments under consideration.

Click me

Federal Lands Map Data Sources

National Monuments under consideration for change by Secretary Zinke:
Accessed from ArcGIS Online by FracTracker Alliance, 28 August 2017. Data apparently from federal sources, such as BLM, NPS, etc. Dataset developed by Kira Minehart, GIS intern with Natural Resources Defense Council.0=not currently targeted for policy or boundary change1= targeted for expanded resource use, such as logging, fishing, etc. 2=targeted for shrinkage of borders, and expanded resource use.

National Park Service lands with current or potential oil and gas drilling:
Downloaded by FracTracker Alliance on 9 November 2016, from National Park Service.  Drilling information from here. List of sites threatened by oil and gas drilling from here (23 January 2013).

Badger-Two Medicine potential Monument:
Shapefile downloaded from USGS by FracTracker Alliance on 28 August 2017. This map layer consists of federally owned or administered lands of the United States, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. For the most part, only areas of 320 acres or more are included; some smaller areas deemed to be important or significant are also included. There may be private inholdings within the boundaries of Federal lands in this map layer. Some established Federal lands which are larger than 320 acres are not included in this map layer, because their boundaries were not available from the owning or administering agency. Complete metadata available here.

By Karen Edelstein, Eastern Program Coordinator, FracTracker Alliance
Community Sentinel Award for Environmental Stewardship
FracTracker Alliance

2017 Community Sentinel Award for Environmental Stewardship Recipients

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Award to be presented to three environmental stewards addressing oil and gas impacts at reception held in Pittsburgh, PA, November 18th

WASHINGTON, DC – October 5, 2017 – Three community advocates were recently selected by a panel of judges to receive the 2017 Community Sentinel Award for Environmental Stewardship, presented this year by Americans Against Fracking, Earthworks, FracTracker Alliance, Halt the Harm Network, and Stop the Frack Attack – sponsored by the 11th Hour Project. Award recipients were chosen because of their steadfast determination to highlight and address the impacts of the oil and gas industry in communities across the United States. The 2017 Community Sentinel Award winners are:

  • Ranjana Bhandari – Arlington, Texas
  • Frank Finan – Hop Bottom, Pennsylvania
  • Ray Kemble – Montrose, Pennsylvania

This year’s recipients, nominated by their peers, have lead campaigns to prevent wastewater injection wells from being permitted near drinking water reservoirs; documented fugitive air emissions using their own personal FLIR cameras; and fought cancer and legal attacks from oil and gas companies simultaneously.

These awardees truly represent the heart of local heroes working tirelessly to safeguard their communities from fracking and its collateral impacts, while at the same time encouraging a national transition to safer, renewable forms of energy…

… remarked Brook Lenker, Executive Director of FracTracker Alliance, the organizer of the award partnership.

Recipients were selected by a committee of community defense leaders: Bill Hughes of Wetzel County Action Group, West Virginia; Pat Popple of Save the Hills Alliance, Wisconsin; Sierra Shamer of Shalefield Organizing Committee, Pennsylvania; Dante Swinton of Energy Justice, Maryland; and Niki Wong of Redeemer Community Partnership, California.

The three recipients will each be awarded $1,000 for their efforts and recognized at an evening reception at the Omni William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Saturday, November 18, 2017 during the People vs. Oil and Gas Infrastructure Summit.

Learn more about the third annual Community Sentinel Award for Environmental Stewardship, or purchase tickets to the reception for $40 (includes award ceremony and reception, heavy hors d’oeuvres, and a drink).

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About FracTracker Alliance

FracTracker Alliance is a national organization with regional offices in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Washington DC, and California. The organization’s mission is to study, map, and communicate the risks of oil and gas development to protect our planet and support the renewable energy transformation. Learn more at fractracker.org.

River Healers drone footage of fracking site in NM
Guest Author

Protect Greater Chaco: Drone surveillance of regional fracking sites in NM

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The River Healers have droned multiple fracking sites in the Greater Chaco Area (New Mexico) impacted by explosions, fires, spills, and methane. See what they are finding. Hear their story.

 

By Tom Burkett – River Healer Spokesperson, New Mexico Watchdog

The Greater Chaco region is known to the Diné (Navajo) as Dinétah, the land of their ancestors. It contains countless sacred sites that date to the Anasazi and is home of the Bisti Badlands and Chaco Culture National Historical Park, a World Heritage Site. Currently WPX Energy has rights to lease about 100,000 acres of federal, state, and Navajo allottee lands in the oil rich San Juan Basin, which includes Greater Chaco.1 WPX Energy along with other fracking companies plan to continue establishing crude oil fracking wells on these sacred lands, although the Greater Chaco community has spoken out against fracking and continue to call for more safety and oversight from New Mexico state regulatory bodies such as the EMNRD Oil Conservation Division.

The River Healers pulled EMNRD records that show over 8,300 spills in New Mexico had been reported by the the fracking industry to EMNRD between 2011-2016 (map below). This is thousands more than reported by the Environmental Protection Agency. The records also showed how quickly reports of spills, fires, and explosions were processed by the EMNRD as ‘non-emergency’ and accepted industry reports that no groundwater had been contaminated.

River Healers map

Zoomed in view of the River Healers’ NM fracking spills map. Learn more

Daniel Tso, Member of the Navajo Nation and Elder of the Counselor Chapter, led us to fracking sites in Greater Chaco that had reported spills and fires. Daniel Tso is one of many Navajo Nation members working on the frontlines to protect Greater Chaco, their ancestral land, and their pastoral ways of life from the expanding fracking industry. Traveling in white trucks and cars we blended in with the oil and gas trucks that dot indigenous community roads and group around fracking pads on squares federally owned land. Years of watchdogging the fracking destruction on their sacred land was communicated through Tso’s eyes looking over the landscape for new fracking disruption and a calm voice,

… the hurt on the sacred landscapes; the beauty of the land is destroyed, this affects our people’s mental, spiritual, and emotional health.

At each site our eyes were scanning the fracking sites and terrain for drone flight patterns while the native elders were slowly scanning the ground for pottery shards and signs of their ancestors. Arroyos sweep around the fracking pads and display how quickly the area can flash flood from rain that gathers on the striated volcanic ash hills of the badlands.

Fracking Regulation in NM

The EMNRD Oil Conservation Division has only 12 inspectors that are in charge of overseeing over 50,000 wells scattered throughout New Mexico.2 Skepticism around EMNRD’s ability to regulate not only comes from a short staff being stretched across 121,598 square miles of New Mexico’s terrain, but thousands of active fracking sites continue to report spills, fires, and explosions every year.3 Even more problematic is that Ken McQueen, Cabinet Secretary of EMNRD formerly served as Vice President of WPX Energy.4 Ken McQueen managed WPX Energy’s assets in the Four Corners area of New Mexico, Colorado, and in addition, part of Wyoming. New Mexico Governor, Susana Martinez’s appointment of McQueen severely compromises the state’s ability to impartially oversee WPX Energy and regulate the fracking industry. Governor Martinez has been called to clean up the EMNRD, and rid the regulatory body of cabinet members more interested in protecting the assets of WPX than the health and rights of New Mexicans. Tso remarks,

The sacrifices of indigenous communities continue for a society that thinks gasoline comes from a gas station. That thinks oil is a commodity that is unending resource. This is unfortunate, and ultimately compromises our physical health. Yet this doesn’t matter to the industry. They want every last drop of crude oil even if it is cost prohibitive.

The River Healers maintain that Governor Martinez is complicit in the exploitation of human water rights as long as the EMNRD remains a compromised and unreliable regulatory body.

riverhealers-pic-1

New Mexico governmental assimilation with the oil and gas industry is presented to the Greater Chaco indigenous communities in the form of 90,000-lb gross weight oilfield trucks. Western Refining started rolling out trucks with larger-than-life prints of state and county law enforcements officers and military personnel at the same time water protectors at Standing Rock were being arrested and assaulted by the Morton County Sheriff’s Department in North Dakota.5 The indigenous-led movement to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline from desecrating sacred land and threatening rights to clean water has drawn greater resistance to oil and gas projects around the country.

Indigenous solidarity is felt in Greater Chaco, but Western Refining’s blatant propaganda campaign demonstrates how oil and gas corporations continue to threaten and silence the communities they extract oil from by displaying the paid power of state and federal law enforcement. The River Healers view this as a direct form of intimidation that aims to further a corporate ideology and remind native communities of the violence they experienced at the hand of the United States Federal Government in the past. The Western Refining campaign is a direct form of corporate-sponsored terrorism and should be grounds to ban their ability to use images of law enforcement officers to further their interests. Furthermore, the state should discontinue paying for officers to patrol facking roads and pads and instead use state funds to make state regulatory bodies work for the communities most impacted by the oil and gas industries.

What we are finding

Drone surveillance of fracking sites in Greater Chaco show how quickly the fracking industry has exploited a state government tied to the interests of a booming and unchecked resource extraction industry. In Greater Chaco this element of time is more deeply understood through the lens of the indigenous community.

Ultimately, the health of the fauna and flora are devastated. The adaptation of the delicate ecosystem is forever destroyed. Their recovery and healing will take years and years.

The Anasazi Kivas in Chaco Canyon took over 300 years to construct, while drill rigs such as Cyclone 32 take less than 10 days to drill 6,500 ft wells in the canyon plateau. We hiked 12 miles of the sacred Chaco Wash, pulled water samples, and saw the red palm of the Supernova Petrograph clinging to the understory of the canyon wall, clearly taking notice of what is happening above.

We deeply thank members of the Navajo Nation for inviting us into their lives, and our hearts stand with them in solidarity. Protect Greater Chaco! Dooda Fracking!

River Healers Site Videos

Site 1

Nageezi, NM
County: San Juan
Kimbeto Wash/Chaco River
GPS: 36°14’22.38”, -107°43’51.38”

Protect Greater Chaco : Site 1 from River Healers on Vimeo.

This particular site caught fire on June 11th, 2016 and was allowed to burn until July 14th. The fracking fire and contaminates spread to areas north and south of the fracking pad, burning Juniper trees within 200 feet of residential buildings. This fire is not the only documented case in the Greater Chaco Area where communities were disrupted and evacuated in the middle of the night. While community members remain concerned about their health, WPX reported that the incident was not an emergency and that no damage was caused to groundwater.

Site 2

Nageezi, NM
County: San Juan
Kimbeto Wash/Chaco River
GPS: 36°13’43.23″, -107°44’28.72″

Protect Greater Chaco : Site 2 from River Healers on Vimeo.

Drone surveys of this particular site show Cyclone 32, a 1500 Horsepower 755 ton drill rig manufactured in Wyoming. The drill rig is transported through Greater Chaco communities on small dusty single lane dirt roads used by the community members and school buses. The drilling is heard and seen moving from pad to pad. The rig is establishing multiple drill heads on pockets of land tucked along the Kimbeto Wash, a tributary to the Chaco River and sacred source of water security for members of the Greater Chaco Area in Nageezi, New Mexico.

Site 3

Nageezi, NM
County: San Juan
Kimbeto Wash/Chaco River
GPS: 36°13’27.51″, -107°45’3.24″

No video available

Site 4

Counselor, NM
County: Rio Arriba
Canada Larga River
GPS: 36°13’18.19″, -107°28’56.24″

Protect Greater Chaco : Site 4 from River Healers on Vimeo.

Drone surveys show Lybrook Elementary School only 1600ft from a WPX Energy fracking site. The crude oil tanks of the site can be seen from the classroom windows of the school. The elementary school was moved to this location in 2006 because it was right across the highway from a large and expanding natural gas plant and had to relocate elementary students to a safe location.

Although the WPX Energy site is established on federal land, this area of Counselor, New Mexico is referred to as ‘The Checkerboard’ because of the quadrants of federal land that break up tribal land. The 5 well heads are highlighted to show that these pockets of federal land are being fracked with a high concentration of fracking wells. By drilling multiple wells in one pad location fracking companies are able to quickly drain the plays of crude oil under the the Greater Chaco Area and avoid signing contracts with the native property owners that live and attend school in the area they are fracking.

Site 5

Counselor, NM
County: Sandoval
Chaco Wash/Chaco River
GPS: 36° 9’45.22″, -107°29’11.47″

Protect Greater Chaco : Site 5 from River Healers on Vimeo.

Drone surveys show crude oil being fracked within 840 ft of an indigenous community in Sandoval County, NM (Greater Chaco). The fracking site is located in the path of the community water supply, which had to be routed around the wellhead and crude tanks. The underground water line remains only 110 ft from active fracking activity.

Particular communities in Greater Chaco are dependent upon pastoral industry and the health of their livestock. Horses owned by the indigenous community are seen grazing on open and unprotected fracking pads. Many of these fracking pads have recorded spills of either fracking fluid, wastewater, or crude oil and pose health risks to the livestock grazing on potentially contaminated grasses and wastewater.

A Western Refining (WPX) crude truck can be seen driving down the community road. These dirt roads were designed to support local community traffic and school buses but are now heavily used by the fracking industry. 90,000-lb gross weight oilfield trucks haul the volatile crude oil through pastoral lands, endangering livestock and community members. Fracking companies continue to level dirt roads to accommodate the weight of their crude trucks. The practice cuts roads deep into the landscape. Roads in Greater Chaco now resemble trenches and make travel dangerous, block scenic views of ancestral land, and hinder the ability to monitor livestock and fracking development.

Site 6

Nageezi, NM
County: San Juan
Kimbeto Wash/Chaco River
GPS: 36°15’20.46”, -107°41’43.14”

Protect Greater Chaco : Site 6 from River Healers on Vimeo.

Drone surveys show 3 well heads, crude tanks, and compressors north of Hwy 550 in Nageezi, NM. The location is of importance because it shows how flaring is used to burn off methane caused by fracking and the transportation processes of crude oil. The River Healers droned this site when workers were not present and the flare tower was turned off for safety concerns, but the flame can usually be seen all the way from Hwy 550 tucked into the distinct hills of the Bisti Badlands. Such methane hotspots are of concern because methane causes severe health risks for individuals living near crude oil facilities. NASA has identified two large methane gas clouds in new Mexico. The methane gas is concentrated above fracking occurring in the San Juan Basin and Permian Basin and disproportionately affects the air quality of Greater Chaco, Four Corners Region, Farmington, and South East region of New Mexico.

Two unlined wastewater pits can be seen on the edge of the fracking pad near the well heads and compressors. Erosion caused by water drainage can be seen leading from the well heads and compressor areas directly to the wastewater pits. Drainages can also be seen coming directly out of the waste water pits and going into the Upper Kimbeto Wash, a tributary of the Chaco River. It is illegal for fracking companies to keep fracking wastewater in unlined pits in the state of New Mexico. The River Healers reported this possible water violation to the EMNRD Oil Conservation Division (a state regulatory body for the fracking industry). EMNRD replied that WPX Energy maintains that the wastewater is caused by stormwater runoff and contains no fracking contaminates. This is the first time we have heard of the fracking industry creating stormwater runoff pits and find the practice to be unusual. Further skepticism that these runoff pits are not contaminated comes from research about the site. In June of 2016, WPX Energy reported a spill of 600 gallons of crude oil at this site because of a fire. WPX maintains that no groundwater was impacted and marked the incident as not an emergency.

References

  1. WPX Adds Accreage in Gallup Oil Play, press release
  2. NM Oil and Gas Enforcement Inspections, Earthworks
  3. New Mexico Geologic Mapping Program, NM Bureau of Geology and Mineral resources
  4. New Mexico Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department – Cabinet Secretary Ken McQueen
  5. Western Refining, Community Supporting Law Enforcement

About River Healers: New Mexico Chapter

newmexicoriverhealers.com

The River Healers organize anonymous watchdog operations and tactical campaigns to protect water. The artist collective is engaged in direct action through analyzing, exposing, and bringing down systematic abuses of water rights. The River Healers work to accelerate theories of water democracy, decentralize aesthetics of environmentalism, and expose corporate sponsored water terrorism. ‘Water is a commons – No one has the right to destroy’

Superior Silica Sand, LLC, Lundequam Picknell site, Barron County WI
FracTracker Alliance

New frac sand mining photos and videos are now available via FracTracker

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Surface mining to obtain sand that is perfectly sized for use in the hydraulic fracturing process has been increasing in recent years. Over the summer, FracTracker had the opportunity to document a number of sand mining activities occurring in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin that supply frac sand to the oil and gas industry. Explore a selection of this imagery below:

Michigan frac sand mining at USS Silica Sylvanian Minerals mineMichigan frac sand mining at USS Silica Sylvanian Minerals mine
Michigan frac sand mining at USS Silica Sylvanian Minerals mine
Michigan frac sand mining at USS Silica Sylvanian Minerals mine
Minnesota Unimin Ottowa sand mine
Minnesota Unimin Ottowa sand mine
Minnesota Unimin Ottowa sand mine
Minnesota Unimin Ottowa sand mine
Hi-Crush facility, Eau Claire County, Wisconsin
Hi-Crush facility, Eau Claire County, Wisconsin
Hi-Crush facility, Eau Claire County, Wisconsin
Hi-Crush facility, Eau Claire County, Wisconsin
Superior Silica Sand's Lundequam Picknell site, Barron County, Wisconsin
Superior Silica Sand's Lundequam Picknell site, Barron County, Wisconsin

Explore these and other frac sand mining photos and videos in our online album. The most recent imagery can be found at the bottom of the album. Additional videos are also available on this YouTube channel.

View All Albums

All of these frac sand photos, and more, can also be found on our Energy Imagery page, organized by topic and also location.

If you have photos or videos that you would like to contribute to this growing collection of publicly available information, just email us at info@fractracker.org, along with where and when the imagery was taken, and by whom.

Lofoten Declaration heading
Guest Author

A Declaration of Independence – FracTracker signs the Lofoten Declaration

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FracTracker Alliance is proud to be a signatory of the Lofoten Declaration. It is a global call – signed by over 220 organizations from 55 countries – to put an end to exploration and expansion of new fossil fuel reserves and manage the decline of oil, coal, and gas in a just transition to a safer climate future.

It is also a call to prioritize support for communities on the front lines of climate change and fossil fuel extraction, and ideally a helpful tool to rally our global movement around the worldwide grassroots efforts to stop fossil fuel projects.

Wealthy fossil fuel producers like the United States have an obligation and responsibility to lead in putting an end to fossil fuel exploitation. Support for impacted regions is imperative, and frontline communities are the leaders we must look to as we all work together for a safer future.

The recent inundation of southeastern Texas, raging fires in the west, and ravaging hurricanes in the Atlantic underscore the dangers wrought by climate change. We need more action and we need it to be rapid, comprehensive, and systemic. Countries can’t be climate leaders until they tackle fossil fuel production – not just consumption.

The Lofoten Declaration is a new affirmation of independence: a world free from the injustice of extractive energy. It is a bold, righteous pronouncement in step with the courageous and visionary traditions of our nation.

With more than 1.2 million active oil and gas wells and thousands more planned, now is the time for America to change its old, tired habits and flex its might through the virtuous power of example.

Full Declaration and Signatories: LofotenDeclaration.org

Brine or water roadspreading in WV
Matt Kelso, BA

Does roadspreading of brine equate to oil and gas waste dumping?

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air quality impact, which is why roadspreading of brine occurs

This 2015 photo from West Virginia illustrates that large trucks on dirt roads create a legitimate dust problem, which impacts both air and water quality.

The application of liquid oil and gas waste from conventional wells onto roadways for dust control and road stabilization is permitted in Pennsylvania, provided that operators adhere to plans approved by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). There are brine spreading guidelines that operators are required to follow, but overall, DEP considers roadspreading to be a beneficial use of the liquid oil and gas waste products.

Dust suppression is a legitimate concern, particularly in areas that see a lot of heavy truck traffic on dirt roads, such rural oil and gas fields. Prolonged exposure to airborne dust contributes to a number of different health problems, ranging from temporary irritation to debilitating diseases of the heart, lungs, and kidneys. This road dust can also impact aquatic life, from plants to aquatic insects to fish.

While applying liquid waste from the oil and gas industry undoubtedly seems like a convenient solution to dusty roads, is roadspreading really advisable?

PA Oil and Gas Liquid Waste Road Applications


View map fullscreen | How FracTracker maps work

In the map above, the areas in green are municipalities where liquid waste from Pennsylvania’s conventional wells were applied to roadways in 2016. The purple areas are counties where additional quantities of the liquid waste were applied in cases where the exact municipality was not specified on the 2016 waste report. The majority of the state’s oil and gas roadspreading remains in Pennsylvania, but some of the brine is spread on roads in New York, as well.

What’s in the brine?

In Pennsylvania, the large-scale extraction efforts from deep carbon-rich shales like the Marcellus and Utica formations are classified as unconventional oil and gas, whereas the shallower formations requiring smaller amounts of hydraulic fracturing stimulation to bring the wells into production are considered to be conventional.

While the chemical components of these brines vary from formation to formation, in general they are known for containing high-salinity toxic metals, such as barium and strontium, as well as volatile organic compounds including benzene. Bromide in the brine can interact with purification processes at treatment plants to create carcinogenic compounds called trihalomethanes. These compounds actually created a problem in the early parts of the Marcellus boom in Western Pennsylvania, when large enough quantities of bromide were added to the region’s rivers and streams. And of particular concern is naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORMs), which sometimes occur at very high concentrations, even in brines from conventional wells.

The Pennsylvania Geological Survey commissioned Evan Dresel and Arthur Rose from Penn State to investigate oil and gas brine from a sample of 40 wells in 1985, although the accompanying paper wasn’t published until 2010.  Their samples included dissolved solids of 343,000 milligrams per liter, and radium occurring at up to 5,300 picocuries per liter. As a point of comparison, the US Environmental Protection Agency mandates that drinking water not exceed 5 picocuries per liter, and the authors of this report express concern about the high levels shown in these brines.

Based on the six samples analyzed, radium shows a general correlation with barium and strontium and an inverse correlation with [sulfate], though the correlation is not perfect. The radium values are high enough that a possible radiation hazard exists, especially where radium could be adsorbed on iron oxides and accumulate in brine tanks.

The article’s preface, written in 2010, echoes the concern, stating, ” the very high radium contents indicate that caution should be used in handling these brines.” One imagines that the radium content might also be a concern for people walking their dogs along dirt roads where these brines are spread.

Testing for radiological contamination appears to be insufficient for liquid oil and gas waste. Ben Stout, PhD, a professor of Biology at Wheeling Jesuit University (and a FracTracker Alliance board member) sampled liquid waste from Marcellus Shale wells in 2009. Here is what he found:

In terms of radiation, 9 of the 13 samples exceeded the drinking water standard for radium. Furthermore, 7 of the 13 samples exceeded the drinking water standard for gross alpha particles, which are a strong indicator of radioactivity. Most notably, one sample from a frac pit at the Phillips #20 site in Westmoreland County, PA yielded a gross alpha reading of 4846 +/‐ 994 picocuries per liter (pCi/L), though the drinking water standard is 15 pCi/L. In fact, the same sample had combined radium readings well over 1,000 pCi/L, a multiple in excess of 200 times the (5 pCi/L) standard. It should be noted that none of the samples triggered a response from radiation meters.

What to do?

From environmental concerns of high salinity to health concerns about the toxic and radiological content of oil and gas brines, intentionally introducing this waste product to public spaces is a dubious practice. It is understandable that township supervisors would want to use readily available materials for dealing with dust control on dirt roads, but if you are concerned about the practice and your area is indicated on the map above, you may wish to contact them to find out where this waste is being spread in greater detail.

By Matt Kelso, Manager of Data and Technology, FracTracker Alliance

Allegheny County, PA map of zoning designations
FracTracker Alliance

Allegheny County, PA – Drilling, Leasing, and Zoning Trends

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By Kirk Jalbert, Manager of Community-Based Research and Engagement
and Matt Kelso, Manager of Data and Technology

FracTracker recently updated its Pennsylvania Shale Viewer to reflect the latest data on unconventional oil and gas permits and active wells in the state. Within this data, we noticed an increase in permitting over the past year for Allegheny County, PA. We have worked on a number of recent initiatives aimed at expanding conversations about unconventional oil and gas drilling by mapping mineral rights leasing and zoning ordinances in Allegheny County. In this article, we bring these various analyses together.

The analysis below can assist residents and public officials in preparing for what appears to be a pending wave of new development.

Untapped Reserves

Over the past decade, unconventional oil and gas development has predominantly occurred in areas where shale formations are densest and most productive. For instance, the map below illustrates wells and permits in Southwestern Pennsylvania that track along the Marcellus Shale. An outlier on the map is Allegheny County when compared to its neighbors such as Washington and Greene Counties just to the south—two of the most drilled in the Commonwealth.

swpa_ac_og

Unconventional wells and permits in Southwest Pennsylvania

A few factors may explain these spatial anomalies. First, oil and gas companies are generally reluctant to operate in heavily populated areas. This is partly due to the complications of acquiring leases and easements in tightly packed communities.

Infrastructure is second consideration. In the absence of compressor stations and midstream pipelines, companies can’t get their product to market.

A third factor is the stronger political opposition often found in urban centers. For example, Pittsburgh’s 2010 fracking ban pushed back against drillers and had a chilling effect in bordering municipalities. Many of Allegheny County’s municipalities have, thus, had the luxury of putting oil and gas-related land use decisions on the back burner. Nevertheless, operators have maintained interest in extracting untapped shale reserves that lie beneath their borders.

Recent Permitting & Drilling Trends

Within Allegheny County, PA, there are now 24 well pads containing a combined 248 permitted wells, of which 109 currently have an active status. On average, these numbers show a 20% increase in well permits annually (40-50 per year) since 2014. This figure compares to less than 10 per year prior to 2012. Furthermore, while only partway through 2017, we’ve already reached this 20% increase in new permits (41 since 8/24), with the overwhelming number of these being issues for Findlay and Forward Townships. A table and graph of permitting activity since 2008 is seen below.

ac_permits_table_08242017

ac_permits_graph_08242017

Table and graph of permitted wells in Allegheny County

Interestingly, the number of active wells over the past few years does not track with increasing number of permits. In fact, active wells peaked in 2014-2015 and have steadily declined since, as is seen in the table and graph below. We credit these opposing trends to operators placing their wells into inactive status during a period of lower gas prices. Meanwhile, operators are increasing their applications for new wells in preparation for a predicted rebound as well as new pipelines and processing facilities coming online for delivering to new markets.

ac_dw_table_08242017

ac_dw_graph_08242017

Table and graph of active wells in Allegheny County

Predicting Development: Mineral Rights Leasing

The locations of permits and active wells are not always good indicators of long-term future development. A better picture can be painted with data on properties leased for eventual drilling. In 2016, FracTracker built the Allegheny County Lease Mapping Project, which revealed the extent of oil and gas leasing agreements across the region. From that work came some interesting findings.

There are 467,200 acres in Allegheny County. We found 63,014 acres (18% of the county) are under some kind of oil and gas agreement – this includes mineral rights leases, as well as other agreement such as pipeline rights of ways. It is important to note that as many as 15% of the records we obtained in executing the project could not be mapped due to missing metadata (many block/lot numbers were no longer provided with online records after 2010), so these are conservative estimates.

The list below shows the top five municipalities found to have the most leases. Of note is how West Deer, North Fayette, and Elizabeth townships all have a significant number of leases, but do not yet register in permitting activity.

Most Leased Municipalities in Allegheny County, PA

  1. West Deer Township (5,325 leases)
  2. North Fayette Township (5,070 leases)
  3. Elizabeth Township (4,070 leases)
  4. Fawn Township (3,872 leases)
  5. Forward Township (3,801)

We also discovered that more than 70% of leased properties were zoned residential or agricultural, despite the fact that unconventional oil and gas development is a highly disruptive and industrialized activity. The list below shows a breakdown of zoning designations.

Leased Properties Zoning

    • Residential (37%)
    • Agricultural (34%)
    • Commercial (23%)
    • Industrial (3%)
    • Other (3%)

Status of Protective Zoning

In 2013, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upended state laws governing local oil and gas zoning rights with its landmark Robinson Township v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania decision. The court struck down parts of Act 13 that imposed statewide zoning standards for oil and gas development. Zoning ordinances with stronger ordinances are now being adopted by some townships. However, many others have zoning codes that reflect pre-Robinson language, which allows mineral extraction everywhere, regardless of whether it is a compatible land use.

Drawing the connections between drilling trends, leasing activity, and protective zoning is, therefore, significant. Over the past six months, FracTracker has worked with Food & Water Watch to put our lease mapping data and state drilling data in context with assessments of Allegheny County’s municipal oil and gas zoning ordinances. The map below illustrates these overlaps.

Map of Allegheny County Drilling, Leasing, and Zoning


View map fullscreen | How FracTracker maps work

Analysis

Allegheny County contains 130 municipalities. Food & Water Watch was able to obtain and review zoning codes for 104 of these 130. At least 56 municipalities have no zoning ordinances specific to oil and gas development. Of greatest concern, when placed in context with leasing and permitting data, FracTracker found that leases already existed in 43 of these 56 municipalities without oil and gas ordinances, although 8 of these 43 were found to have other less restrictive language regulating specific oil and gas activities, such as seismic testing. Fawn Township, one of the most permitted and most leased municipalities in the county, was found to have no oil and gas zoning ordinance.

Conclusions

It’s important to recognize that there is a significant difference between conventional oil and gas development and today’s heavily industrialized unconventional extraction industry. In many of Allegheny County’s municipalities there seems to be a presumption that there is no need to prepare zoning codes for drilling, despite data that suggest increased oil and gas development may be just around the corner.

With the deeper understanding of Allegheny County’s permitting trends, leasing activities, and the state of protective zoning presented in this article, municipalities would be wise to assess where they stand. Reviewing and updating their respective zoning codes to determine if they sufficiently address concerns related to unconventional drilling could be the most effective way to protect the interests of their residents.

Kyle Ferrar, MPH

FracTracker Alliance to Host Community Meetings in Colorado

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FracTracker Alliance invites Colorado’s Front Range communities to attend and participate in two community meetings, open to the public on August 23rd and 24th. Our shared goals will be to craft new research projects for FracTracker to study related to the environmental health impacts resulting from oil and gas development in Colorado. We also welcome Dr. Stephanie Malin, who will be giving a short presentation on her current work.

Background

FracTracker is returning to Colorado’s Front Range to continue working with communities where oil and gas exploration and production impacts the daily lives of Coloradoans and degrades the environment. While Colorado is not well known for oil and gas extraction, development within recent years using unconventional techniques like fracking has bloated production to over 60,000 active wells. The majority of these wells, over 33,000, are located in Weld County. These Front Range communities are also the most densely populated regions near major unconventional oil and gas development. FracTracker will, therefore, continue to support these communities under assault by the fossil fuel industry.

Community Workshops

FracTracker will be hosting two community engagement workshops in Weld County on August 23rd and 24th. You can find the flyers with times posted below. The meetings will serve to both inform the communities of the work FracTracker is currently conducting or has already completed to date, and to direct and inform future research in Colorado. Active communty engagement is most important to the environmental health research process. Researchers rely on community members. You, the community, are the experts we need to create responsibly informed research projects!

Below are flyers with more information about the events (click to expand).

Community meetings in Colorado - August 23rd flyer
Community meetings in Colorado - August 24th flyer

Our agenda for the August 23rd meeting includes a synopsis of the research products that have been generated by FracTracker thus far. Below you will find links to the research that has been summarized into blog posts. Current, active research will also be presented:

Meeting Goals

Instead of coming in with a preconceived research question, we’re starting with your concerns. The goal of these meetings is to narrow down topics for future research, and then to refine the questions associated with each topic. The meeting on the 23rd will serve to nail down the issues that are most important to community members. This conversation may include expanding existing research and revisiting topics. On the evening of August 24th, we will present these topics to the greater community for further discussion. The issues will be prioritized with the help of a larger audience, and specific research aims will be synthesized.

workshop-wheel

For more information about these community meetings in Colorado, please contact Kyle Ferrar at ferrar@fractracker.org.

Stock photo - European Renewable Energy Tour 2018
FracTracker Alliance

Participate in a European Renewable Energy Tour with FracTracker & Ecologic Institute

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Next spring, join FracTracker Alliance and Ecologic Institute on a unique and timely European Renewable Energy Tour. Witness the incredible – and essential – energy revolution happening in Europe in an immersive, holistic way.

Europe’s energy policies are set to reduce dependence on foreign providers of fossil fuels, and substantially reduce the region’s climate change footprint.  In addition to learning how select European cities are expanding their renewable energy portfolios, the goal of this trip is to stimulate and inspire new perspectives and connections that will accelerate a better energy future in the United States.

Save the dates: May 27, 2018 – June 2, 2018

The full price of the tour ($1990.00*) includes all site visits, meetings, admission fees, 14 meals (except alcoholic beverages), accommodations, and in-Europe travel from Copenhagen, to Hamburg, to Berlin, to Frankfurt. The fee includes a small donation to both partnering organizations. International flights to Copenhagen and from Frankfurt (back to the U.S.) are not included. Financial assistance may be available. Contact us for more information.

The deadline to buy your tickets has been extended to December 31, 2017. We hope you will join us for this unique, 7-day educational experience. 

Purchase Tickets $1990.00

Renewable Energy Tour Summary

  • Dates: May 27 – June 2, 2018
  • Stops: Copenhagen | Hamburg | Berlin | Frankfurt
  • Draft itinerary

Timeline

  • Deposit due December 31, 2017: $995 (Extended)
  • Balance due March 1, 2018: $995
  • Or – pay in full by December 31, 2017: $1,990
  • A $300 discount on the full price of the tour is available for people who would like to opt for double occupancy accommodations.

Price Includes

  • All lodging *
  • 14 meals
  • In-Europe train tickets **
  • Group taxi and bus fares
  • Guided services
  • Entry fees for all tours
  • Financial assistance may be available. Contact us for more information.

* Double occupancy receives a $300 discount. Select the Double Occupancy option when purchasing your tickets.

** Airfare to and from Europe is not included in the total price of the trip. Participants should book their flights to arrive in Copenhagen, Denmark on May 27th, departing for the US from Frankfurt, Germany on June 2, 2018.

Contact Information

Brook Lenker, Executive Director, FracTracker Alliance
lenker@fractracker.org or (717) 303-0403

The deadline to submit your deposit online is December 31, 2017.

Submit Deposit