Last week, a judge with the PA Environmental Hearing Board granted a two week halt to horizontal directional drilling (HDD) operations pertaining to the construction of Sunoco Logistics’ Mariner East 2 (ME2) pipeline. The temporary injunction responds to a petition from the Clean Air Council, Mountain Watershed Association, and the Delaware Riverkeeper Network. It remains in effect until […]
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 […]
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 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 […]
Digging into energy data is a tough job, and there is always more work to do than FracTracker has staff. For fall 2017, we’re seeking three unpaid interns to assist with our data and GIS work, one for each of the following offices: Pittsburgh, PA Cleveland Heights, OH Oakland, CA Applicants should be currently attending or […]
By Leann Leiter and Lisa Graves Marcucci Maps and data analysis by Kirk Jalbert Highly industrialized operations like petrochemical plants inherently carry risks, including the possibility of large-scale disasters. In an effort to prepare, it is incumbent upon all stakeholders to fully understand the risk potential. Yet, the planned Shell ethane cracker and additional petrochemical […]
The Susquehanna River is a 444-mile long waterway extending from the area around Cooperstown, New York to the Chesapeake Bay. In Pennsylvania, the basin includes more than 37,000 miles of streams that feed into the river, which capture the precipitation of more than 20,000 square miles of land, and is home to over 3.3 million […]
By Alison Grass, Senior Researcher at Food & Water Watch Over the past decade, the natural gas industry has experienced a renaissance that has been a boon to energy company profits. But it has altered the quality of life for the rural communities where most new gas wells have been drilled. Now, fracking is fueling […]
In March 2017, FracTracker Alliance conducted a review of the available Pennsylvania oil and gas fine data released publicly by the PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to identify trends in industry-related fines over time and by particular operators. In total, the DEP has assessed nearly $36 million in fines to oil and gas extraction […]
Save the Date: November 18, 2017 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania The thousands of volunteers working in their communities and cherished places to observe, measure, document, report, address, and limit impacts caused by activities of the oil and gas industry are invaluable. Their actions and advocacy make a tremendous difference in the collective fight to prevent environmental and […]
The fifth annual Shale & Public Health Conference is presented by the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania and hosted by the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health at the Pitt University Club. The event will be held on November 13, 2017 in Pittsburgh, PA from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Registration/sign-in will […]
