A complete list of all FracTracker posts.
Worst Case Scenario A house exploding from a natural gas leak sounds straight out of a 19th century period drama, but this tragedy just recently occurred in Firestone, Colorado. How could this happen in 2017? We have seen pictures and read reports of blowouts and explosions at well sites, and know of the fight against big […]
Recently, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) started to offer additional data resources with the introduction of the Open Data Portal. This development, along with the continued evolution of the ArcGIS Online mapping platform that we utilize has enabled some recent enhancements in our mapping of Pennsylvania oil and gas infrastructure. We’ve made changes […]
Our planet needs your help and so does FracTracker so we can keep helping the planet. Forgive our circular logic, but you are invaluable in keeping us in motion. Our first, formal annual fund campaign launched in September 2016 and has received over $15,000 in donations. While that is 30% of our goal, every dollar […]
An Ohio family took joy in raising their kids and cattle at their farmhouse, built in 1853 with crooked walls and no indoor bathrooms. When they leased land to fracking activity, however, the “beep, beep, beep” of heavy truck traffic kept them up all night, and a cow died after drinking a strange fluid flowing […]
In this series of articles on the Susquehanna River Basin, FracTracker has explored the relationship between oil and gas extraction and the overall health of the watershed relative to oil and gas extraction impacts. We began with a basic overview of likely relationships, followed by an analysis of oil and gas violations relative to resources […]
Over 50% of land in the United States is dedicated to agriculture. Oil and gas development, particularly hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” is taking place near many of these farms. Farms feed us, and unfortunately they are not protected from the impacts of fracking. Even if drilling can be done responsibly, accidents happen. In Colorado, for […]
In this forest fragmentation analysis, FracTracker looked at existing vegetation height in the northern portion of Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna River Basin. The vegetation height data is available from LANDFIRE, a resource used by multiple federal agencies to assess wildfire potential by categorizing the vegetation growth in 30 by 30 meter pixels into different categories. In the […]
How fragmented approvals and infrastructure favor petrochemical development By Leann Leiter and Lisa Graves-Marcucci Let’s think back to 2009, when oil and gas companies like Range Resources began drilling the northeast shale plays in earnest. Picture the various stages involved in drilling – such as leasing of land, clearing of trees, boring of wells, siting […]
Guest article by Becca Pollard Eighty years ago, Southeastern Ohio was a wasteland of barren, eroding hills. During the 18th and 19th centuries this once heavily forested area in the Appalachian foothills had been clear cut and mined beyond recognition. When the Great Depression struck, lowering crop prices made farming unprofitable in the area, and […]
The largest accidental release of methane in U.S. history began October 23, 2015 with the blowout of an underground natural gas storage well in Aliso Canyon about 20 miles west of Los Angeles. By the time the well was plugged 112 days later, more than 5.0 billion cubic feet of methane and other pollutants had […]
