The Hidden Costs of a Plastic Planet
Plastic has been getting a lot of negative press lately. It’s killing marine life, forming vortexes in the ocean, and being burned instead of recycled. But until recently, most of the attention has focused on plastic pollution – the waste that turns up after a product has served its purpose. Now that’s changed- the Center […]
The Falcon Public Monitoring Project
Part of the Falcon Public EIA Project In March of 2019, two and a half years after Shell Pipeline Co. announced plans for the Falcon Ethane Pipeline System, the imported pipes arrived at the Port of Philadelphia. As tree clearing and construction begins, we share frustration with residents that the project is underway while many […]
Staff Spotlight: Shannon Smith
As part of FracTracker’s staff spotlight series, learn more about Shannon and her passion for environmental justice and public health that led her to FracTracker Staff Spotlight: Shannon Smith Time with FracTracker: I just started in May 2019! Education: BA in Cultural Anthropology from Reed College in Portland, OR Office Location: Pittsburgh, PA Title: Manager of Communications […]
One in a Million
Help Us Celebrate Our Visitation Milestone with a Gift Today FracTracker was launched in June of 2010 as a website managed by the Center for Healthy Environments and Communities at the University of Pittsburgh. As we approach our ninth birthday, we are pleased to announce quite a milestone: FracTracker.org has reached over one million users! […]
Release: The 2019 You Are Here map launches, showing New York’s hurdles to climate leadership
For Immediate Release Contact: Lee Ziesche, lee@saneenergyproject.org, 954-415-6282 Interactive Map Shows Expansion of Fracked Gas Infrastructure in New York State And showcases powerful community resistance to it New York, NY – A little over a year after 55 New Yorkers were arrested outside of Governor Cuomo’s door calling on him to be a true climate […]
An Earth Day Tribute to Bill Hughes
In March 2019, Bill Hughes, environmental defender extraordinaire and former FracTracker colleague, passed away. His legacy lives through the multitude of lives he enriched – from students to activists to everyday people. Bill was an omnipresent force for good and always armed with facts and a pervasive smile. He is dearly missed. The article that […]
Idle Wells are a Major Risk
Designating a well as “idle” is a temporary solution for operators, but comes at a great economic and environmental cost to Californians Idle wells are oil and gas wells which are not in use for production, injection, or other purposes, but also have not been permanently sealed. During a well’s productive phase, it is pumping […]
Literally Millions of Failing, Abandoned Wells
By Kyle Ferrar, Western Program Coordinator, FracTracker Alliance In California’s Central Valley and along the South Coast, there are many communities littered with abandoned oil and gas wells, buried underground. Many have had homes, buildings, or public parks built over top of them. Some of them were never plugged, and many of those that were […]
Wicked Witch of the Waste
The Great Plains has become the unconventional oil & gas industry’s dumping ground, prompting questions about the security and resilience of the bread basket and the underlying Ogalalla Aquifer Back in December of 2016, FracTracker analyzed the growing link between injection wells that dispose fracking waste and “induced seismicity” [1], or human-caused earthquakes. Our compiled […]
The Growing Web of Oil and Gas Pipelines
Although the vast majority of scientists agree that we must rapidly move away from fossil fuels to avoid a human-caused climate catastrophe by the end of this century, pipeline construction remains a big business. Pipelines are the backbone of domestic fossil fuel use and for delivering fuels to terminals for international export. Yet aside from […]
