Entries by FracTracker Alliance

Statewide County Natural Heritage Inventory Map

We Love Maps At FracTracker, you could say that we are a bit obsessed about maps and data.  The amazing map below was created and is updated by the PA Natural Heritage Program (PNHP). While this is a recurring project for PNHP, with the increase in shale gas activity in recent years it is ever […]

Collaborative Trail Logbook – Reporting Gas Industry Impacts on PA Trail Experiences

(Harrisburg) – FracTracker.org and the Keystone Trails Association are proud to launch Trail Logbook: Reporting Gas Industry Impacts on Pennsylvania Trail Experiences – an effort to collect information from hikers and other trail users who have had negative or hazardous encounters while recreating in PA. “Throughout the Marcellus Shale region, more and more we’re hearing […]

Stepping into the Utica Shale

By Samantha Malone, MPH, CPH I recently had the honor of presenting to a well-informed and concerned audience of residents, media, academics, non-profits, and industry personnel in the town of Alliance in Northeastern Ohio. The reason I was asked to participate in this public meeting was to provide some insight into how drilling has progressed […]

Shale Health Office Available for Southwest PA Residents

It isn’t often that you personally know the personnel responsible for a project prior to its launch, but those of us at FracTracker had that benefit with regard to the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project, or SWPA-EHP for short. (Oh how we love our complex acronyms.) Raina Rippel, the project’s director, spoke at the second annual […]

A New Day for FracTracker

By Brook Lenker, FracTracker Director Like the public’s comprehension of the impacts of the shale gas industry, FracTracker is growing and evolving. We’re becoming better suited to expand that comprehension and nurture more inquiry into this game-changing period in energy development. Our innovative website was launched by the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Healthy Environments […]

Covert Affairs in the Commonwealth

trans·par·ent  [trans-pair-uhnt, -par-] adjective admitting the passage of light through interstices. easily seen through, recognized, or detected: transparent excuses. antonyms:  opaque  |  secretive  |  HB 1950 While House Bill 1950 is not actually listed as an antonym to “transparent” in the dictionary, its passing certainly acted that way. On February 8, 2012, PA’s HB 1950 was quickly bullied through the Senate and House with very little public transparency on what it […]

A World Without Research

When times are economically demanding, the first tendency of regulators is to suggest cutting non-essential programs. Unfortunately, many of those ‘non-essentials’ include public services and research, which are pivotal to the progress of our nation. Mostly as a mental exercise, I’d like everyone to ask themselves where we would we be if we did not fund such […]

Where is public health at the Marcellus table?

Missing from the Table: Role of the Environmental Public Health Community in Governmental Advisory Commissions Related to Marcellus Shale Drilling Below is the abstract for an article submitted by Goldstein, Kriesky, and Pavliakova to Environmental Health Perspectives, a prestigious peer-reviewed journal about today’s most pressing environmental health issues. Or, download the entire article (PDF).  Note: […]

TOXMAP: Learn about toxic chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing

The National Library of Medicine’s TOXMAP now provides information on the toxic chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing. Companies involved in hydraulic fracturing are not currently required to report to the US EPA Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Program and so are not represented in TOXMAP. However, TOXMAP provides information on many of the most toxic chemicals used. […]

Animating Data: A Different Way to Look at Marcellus Shale Drilling

by Josh Knauer, CEO of Rhiza At Rhiza, we love to experiment with new ways of visualizing data that help tell better data stories. In most of our work environments, using data is kind of difficult and visualizing is usually left to data experts. We’d love to see a future where sharing data visualizations (maps, charts, explanations, […]