New Value for Land in Rural Ohio

By KEITH SCHNEIDER June 4, 2012

CALDWELL, Ohio — The energy boom has swept into the rural counties of the upper Ohio River Valley, producing a torrent of investment in mineral leasing that is jolting the economies of small towns and swelling the bank accounts of some working-class families.

Here in Noble County, where vehicle repair and convenience stores are economic mainstays, Eclipse Resources, a Pennsylvania company, mailed $16 million in oil- and gas-leasing checks last month to 70 households whose property has been found to sit atop oil and gas reserves. Working with a lawyer in nearby Marietta, the residents were able to band together to negotiate an unusually lucrative deal with the company that paid $4,000 an acre and 19 percent royalties on oil and gas production, and included safeguards to protect water and land. (The standard has been $20 to $30 an acre, one-sixth royalty rates, and no protections for water and land.)

In a region where median household income is less than $33,000, the first big flush of oil- and gas-related income produced leasing checks of six and seven figures — amounts the recipients say are a bit disorienting.

Arthur and Sharon Stottsberry, who are retired from inspector and clerk jobs with the State Department of Transportation, received $280,000 for the right to lease oil and gas reserves beneath their 70-acre farm. “It doesn’t seem real,” said Mrs. Stottsberry, 68. “We haven’t planned much about what to do. The most important thing is I want to make sure my grandkids do well.”

To read the entire article go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/05/us/mineral-leases-give-boost-to-rural-ohio.html?_r=1&ref=us

Colorado Fracking Protests Target Drilling Near School

Posted: 06/06/2012 6:18 pm Updated: 06/06/2012 6:23 pm

From The Colorado Independent's Troy Hooper:

ERIE — With black whiskers painted across her cheeks, 6-year-old Olivia Cusimano roared into the plastic megaphone as if hers were the voice of the blue knotted-up balloon tiger she clutched beneath her left arm.

“Hey, hey! Ho, ho! These fracking wells have got to go!” she shouted as she led a parade of demonstrators through the streets on Saturday to protest Encana Corp.’s latest natural gas drilling project. The company has set up extraction operations in a prairie near two elementary schools, a middle school and a daycare.

“I think people will get hurt,” Cusimano said in an interview (mp3). “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Her concern stems from the rising tide of information scientists are publishing about the impacts of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The University of Colorado-Denver School of Public Health recently released a study showing people who reside within a half-mile of oil-and-gas drilling were exposed to air pollutants five times above federal hazard standards. The researchers concluded that people living closer to natural gas wells had a greater risk of developing cancer.

Some of Cusimano’s classmates stayed home from school last year with breathing and gastrointestinal problems their parents blame on pollutants from the hundreds of natural gas wells in the area.

Industry representatives maintain fracking is safe. They claim the protestors exaggerate.

Erie is an old coal town. Before it was incorporated in 1874, its coal fields powered steam engines. Mines in the area produced coal until the mid-1960s.

To read the entire article go to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/06/colorado-fracking-protest-school_n_1575816.html?ref=green

Commissioners don’t see need for water quality testing well in Silt

Posted:   06/05/2012 07:30:22 AM MDT

Updated:   06/05/2012 07:30:23 AM MDT

By Nelson Harvey

The Post Independent

GLENWOOD SPRINGS -  —  The Garfield Board of County Commissioners appears unwilling to fund construction of a water quality testing well on the property of Silt landowner Lisa Bracken, who claims that gas from a seep has contaminated her water supply.

Bracken, who detected the seep near her home on Divide Creek in 2008, asked the commissioners in a public comment period at their Monday meeting to fund a testing well. Her request comes after a consultant retained by the county to investigate the 2008 seep determined it came from natural, not human, causes.

"We have a lot of other experts who are saying that we're monitoring it, and things are OK," Commissioner John Martin told Bracken. "I know this is dear to you, but my best advice is to visit with the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission," the state agency charged with regulating oil and gas.

To read the entire article go to: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_20785225

Former E.P.A. Official Pulls Out of House Hearing

By RACHEL NUWER June 6, 2012, 1:57 pm

A former Environmental Protection Agency official who stepped down this spring over controversial remarks he had made about punishing major polluters has sidestepped a grilling that he was expected to face on Wednesday at a House subcommittee hearing.

The official, Al Armendariz, the former Dallas-based administrator for the E.P.A.’s Region 6, notified a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday afternoon that he would not appear at Wednesday’s 10 a.m. hearing on “E.P.A. Enforcement Priorities and Practices.”

Dr. Armendariz resigned in April after Republican critics of the E.P.A. circulated a 2010 video in which he declared that the agency should “crucify” polluting companies. “It is kind of like how the Romans used to conquer villages in the Mediterranean – they’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere and they’d find the first five guys they saw and they’d crucify them,” he says on the tape. “Then that little town was really easy to manage for the next few years.”

Dr. Armendariz had previously agreed to serve as a witness at the subcommittee hearing. He did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.

It went without saying that many had expected Dr. Armendariz to face a crucifixion, rhetorically speaking, at the hearing. Its Republican leadership has been sharply critical of the E.P.A.’s efforts to enforce the Clean Air Act and tighten emissions standards.

To read the entire article go to: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/former-e-p-a-official-pulls-out-of-house-hearing/

Senators fan the flames of discontent with regard to coal permit hearings

Jun 6 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Jack Latta The Floyd County Times, Prestonburg, Ky.

Senator Rand Paul added more fuel to the fire of criticism aimed at the EPA Tuesday releasing a statement chastising the federal agency for its practices.

To read the entire article go to: http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=24832785

Louisiana: Two Scientists Surrender E-Mail to BP

By LESLIE KAUFMAN June 6, 2012

Two prominent scientists involved in estimating the flow rate from a ruptured oil well during BP’s 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico have surrendered more than 3,000 of their private e-mails to the company in response to a subpoena by the United States District Court in New Orleans. BP sought the e-mails from the scientists, Chris Reddy and Richard Camilli of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, to help prepare its defense in a lawsuit brought by the federal government. In an op-ed article in The Boston Globe, the scientists said they had given the company more than 50,000 pages of documents and data before the company also demanded the e-mails.

To read the entire article go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/science/earth/louisiana-two-scientists-surrender-e-mail-to-bp.html

Exporter wants federal review of Jordan Cove export terminal, gas pipe to begin

Published: Tuesday, June 05, 2012, 10:23 AM     Updated: Tuesday, June 05, 2012, 5:04 PM

By Ted Sickinger, The Oregonian

The Williams Companies, Inc. has asked federal regulators to begin the review process for the Pacific Connector pipeline, which would carry natural gas to a proposed liquefied natural gas export terminal in Coos Bay. It intends to file a complete application by the end of the year.

Williams and the backers of the proposed Jordan Cove LNG terminal had hoped that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission would expedite review of the pipeline, which was previously approved when Jordan Cove was envisioned as an import facility. Now that the project backers intend to export gas, however, regulators are undertaking another full- blown review of both the terminal and the pipe.

To read the entire article go to: http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2012/06/exporter_requests_federal_revi.html