Entries by FracTracker Alliance

Putting the “Fun” in Fundraisers

By Brook Lenker, Executive Director, FracTracker Alliance It’s almost July, but just a few weeks ago, FracTracker wrapped up the last of three fundraising events. From a site in San Francisco overlooking the Pacific to a budding distillery in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, friends and colleagues came together to show their support for our work and […]

Public Perception of Sustainability

By Jill Terner, PA Communications Intern, FracTracker Alliance In the previous two installments of this three part series, I discussed how sustainability provides a common platform for people who support and deny the use of hydraulic fracturing to extract oil and natural gas from the ground. While these opposing sides may frequently use sustainability in […]

Fracturing wells and land cover in California

By Andrew Donakowski, Northeastern Illinois University Land cover data can play an important role in spatial analysis; satellite or aerial imagery can effectively demonstrate the extent and make-up of land cover characteristics for large areas of land. For fracking analysis, this can be used to explore important spatial relationships between fracking infrastructure and the area and/or ecosystems […]

Well Worker Safety and Statistics

By Samantha Malone, MPH, CPH – Manager of Science and Communications, FracTracker Alliance The population most at risk from accidents and incidents near unconventional drilling operations are the drillers and contractors within the industry. While that statement may seem quite obvious, let’s explore some of the numbers behind how often these workers are in harm’s way […]

An Open Letter to FracFocus

FracFocus.org is the preferred chemical disclosure registry for the oil and gas (O&G) industry, and use of your website by the industry is mandated by some states and regulatory agencies. As such, we hope you’ll be responsive to this call by FracTracker, other organizations, and concerned citizens across the country to live up to the […]

Water Use in WV and PA

Water Resource Reporting and Water Footprint from Marcellus Shale Development in West Virginia and Pennsylvania Report and summary by Meghan Betcher and Evan Hansen, Downstream Strategies; and Dustin Mulvaney, San Jose State University The use of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas extraction has greatly increased in recent years in the Marcellus Shale. Since the beginning […]

Three Cities, One Cause

By Brook Lenker, Executive Director, FracTracker Alliance Tracking the impacts of oil and gas development is downright sobering. Sometimes recharge is needed for the work ahead, so as the FracTracker Alliance approaches its two-year organizational anniversary, it is due time to make time for fun and mixing with friends, partners, and supporters. On a parallel […]

Finding PA Department of Environmental Protection Data

Data transparency is a major issue in the oil and gas world. Some states in the U.S. do not make the location or other details associated with wells easy to find. If one is looking for Pennsylvania data, however, the basic datasets are quite accessible. The PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) maintains several datasets […]

H 2 O Where Did It Go?

By Mary Ellen Cassidy, Community Outreach Coordinator, FracTracker Alliance A Water Use Series Many of us do our best to stay current with the latest research related to water impacts from unconventional drilling activities, especially those related to hydraulic fracturing.  However, after attending presentations and reading recent publications, I realized that I knew too little […]

Renewal

By Brook Lenker, Executive Director, FracTracker Alliance This isn’t a call for membership (we really don’t have members, but we do accept donations through the donate button on our home page), it’s a pause for gratitude, reflection, and sharing of good news and good will as we begin 2014. In our expanding efforts to communicate […]