FRACKED: A PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF LIVING ON THE SHALE

From theclean.org:

FRACKED: A PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF LIVING ON THE SHALE

October 26, 2011: Nothing can prepare a person for the reality of high-volume "fracking"; certainly not the coaxing of suave salesmen who convince landowners to sign leases by telling them that they've won "the natural gas sweepstakes." And certainly not their description of benign completed gas wells that stand in green meadows, silently pumping money out of the ground.

When the frackers come, they arrive like an invading army:

Trucks by the hundreds, tankers, dump trucks, drilling rigs, fracking rigs. Five-acre drilling pads were bulldozed in the middle of farmers' best fields, million-gallon ponds were installed, roads were built, woods and fields were trenched and bulldozed for tie lines. Drilling rigs went up at an unbelievable rate. From one spot on our farm, I counted eight rigs.

Then the generators started. You could hear them a half-mile away.

Then the pumping stations - small, industrial sites with buildings and pipes sticking up out of the ground.

This is the scene as described by Libby Foust. Her family farm was the site of some of the first Marcellus wells in Bradford County, Pennsylvania.

Read the rest of the blog post at: theclean.org

More interesting reading from fellow bloggers: NY landowners face attempts to extend leases for drilling because of "force majeure"

Sue Heavenrich writes a blog called "The Marcellus Effect" about shale gas production in the northeastern United States.  In a recent post, she discusses the attempts by a company called Chesapeake to extend expiring gas drilling leases by reliance on "force majeure" clauses.  "Force Majeure" clauses in contracts are meant to relieve parties from obligations when performance becomes impossible due to extenuating circumstances.  Often these circumstances will be "Acts of God".  In this case, Heavenrich reports that Chesapeake is contending that New York State's prohibition on hydro-fracking is a "force majeure" that is preventing it from proceeding with drilling, thereby necessitating an extension of leases.  Apparently, at least one County Clerk is refusing to register the extensions that have not been signed by affected landowners. 

Read the post at: Extending leases ... still.