Fracking Cemeteries?

According to an article in the Columbus Dispatch, a Texas-based driller is seeking to frack a Lowellville/Poland, Ohio (near Youngstown) cemetery. In a way it makes sense - it's the one place toxic chemicals can't hurt the residents.

It will be interesting to hear how this develops, they're trying to decide if the township gets the mineral rights or if each plot owner's family owns the mineral rights.

College campuses, inner-city industrial parks, places where our food is grown, fresh water tributaries, cemeteries - what's next? elementary schools? nursing home patios?

I'm going to leave my personal commentary out of this one before I go too far (except for my sarcastic comment and question above), but I will provide a link to the Dispatch article so you can check it out on your own if you want to read it.

Do you think fracking a cemetery is going too far? Feel free to share your opinion by leaving a comment or visiting the forum.

Things for Landowners to Consider When Signing Over Mineral Rights to Gas Companies

The gentleman in this video talks about things landowners need to consider, in detail, before signing land rights over to gas companies. He does not profess to offer legal or financial advice, and he does not declare a positive or negative stance in regards to fracking, he simply points out things most people would not think about and asks viewers to weigh the options before signing anything - like - if you sign over all mineral rights you cannot always later refinance or sell your property because a lien can be put against your property's mineral rights. That's not all, if you have about 20 minutes and 23 seconds to spare, this information is well worth learning, and could even be vital to your financial future.


Landowner Considerations in Unconventional Gas Drilling from Paul Feezel on Vimeo.

If you cannot open this embedded video, this is the link to the Vimeo page.

Ohio Department of Natural Resources Recommendations for Well Water Testing Before Gas and Oil Drilling

I apologize for this post's long title. I couldn't decide which part should be left out to make it shorter.

ODNR has released information for concerned Ohio residents regarding the proper procedure for testing well water.

Basically, they ask residents to foot the bill to have their water tested before drilling begins (if they are lucky enough to have advance notice of drilling or fracking brine dumping in their area), only by OEPA certified water testing labs the ODNR approves, and then pay again after drilling or dumping to have that same lab test the well water again.

Here is why it has to be labs they specify (direct quote from ODNR document)... "Samples should be submitted to an Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (Ohio EPA) certified drinking water laboratory. The laboratory should be certified for each chemical parameter to be tested. Without attention to these details, water analyses will be of little or no value in an oil and gas water contamination investigation or a legal proceeding."

I'm not arguing the wisdom of having your water tested before and after drilling or dumping, assuming you are forewarned. I just think it's a little disappointing that the very agencies charged with protecting the public good are telling residents not only, that they are on their own as far as water testing, but also if the residents don't send their cash to the lab the governmental agencies choose they will have very little legal recourse after their water has been contaminated.

Anyway, I invite you to check out the document, and, if your interpretation of the document varies from my own interpretation, you are welcome to stop back and leave a comment voicing your thoughts on the document, or anything about this topic.

Help for Landowners Victimized by Gas Drilling

Something to balance the power between gas companies and the people affected by gas companies, at least a little bit of help for a few land-owners...

MIT is test-marketing a new software program to help loandowners make sure drilling proposals from companies are fair and safe.

Also available to provide information to landowners, The Landman Report Card.

Fracking Article on Lawyers, Guns & Money

While this article on Lawyers, Guns & Money is not about Ohio, it is about the dangers of fracking. It describes the eathquakes that started in Arkansas when fracking started there. The earthquakes subsided when the drilling stopped. Ther article goes on to mention that further exploration of the cause would not be researched because, well, the gas companies have the power to stop it.

The part I found the most interesting - the comments at the end of the article. One poster went as far as to describe the issue behind the fracking controversy as being that people hate energy companies. Really, though, that seems like a very, very short-sighted stance.

The problem, at least for most people and environmental groups, has nothing to do with hating energy companies. It has to do with not wanting to see people die due to a company's greed and political leader's greed over not wanting to lose money and power by standing up against companies doing the wrong thing.  That is the bottom line, not hatred of the companies bringing us energy.

Controversies Involved in Natural Gas Drilling

I selected this article for Ohio, Frac, and the Environment because, while I feel the author is pro-fracking based on his link to an oil-well selling site, he did a nice job with the article and he presented his information objectively.

Author: Andrews Boaz

The modern era has seen most of the countries, desperately searching for the deposits of oil and natural gas. Indeed drilling for gas has taken an upper hand, ever since it was found that the natural gas was much superior to that of the crude oil. This is because of the reason that, when a comparison is made among all the fossil fuels, it is the natural gas that is found to releases less of the harmful gases that harm the atmosphere on combustion. This has made it a star among all the fuels present on earth.

Because of this environmental friendliness, natural gas has become a champion fuel as far as the modern world is concerned. Drilling for gas has since then picked up on a worldwide level, with most of the companies getting involved with explorations in the natural gas field. Currently it is a period of recession, that most of the people worldwide are undergoing and certainly most of them have lost jobs. In this modern world the usage of oil has become essential and the oil wells for sale has emerged as the leading and most lucrative business and details about Oil Wells for Sale and oil well companies for sale can be obtained here.

Thus the natural gas drilling companies with their new projects can very well provide employment to the people who are located near the natural gas fields and this opens this sector, with plenty of job opportunities. Drilling for gas has its own set of disadvantages, when it comes to the areas that are located near the natural gas fields. This is following several reports which suggest that, the drilling for gas has resulted in polluting the ground water in several places. The gas drilling companies nowadays drill the shale rocks, to release the gas deposits that have been locked within the rock crevices, for millions of years.

Subsequently when the natural gas company start drilling for gas within the shale rocks, they use a method called as fracting that is most commonly employed, whenever a horizontal drilling process takes place. During the process of fracting that is employed during the drilling for gas several chemicals are used to fasten the process and this result in polluting the water table present in that locality. It is this fracting process, that most of the environmentalists and also the local groups are against, since it can cause health hazards to the local residents. Thus though gas drilling has picked up steam in most parts of the world, there are some places where the environmental groups and natives do offer stiff resistance, that blocks the prospects for drilling for gas near impossible in such areas.

Hence it is totally up to the natural gas drilling companies, to win the confidence of the people as well as the environmental groups and negotiate with them to make drilling possible. Apart from this, the gas drilling companies have to be very transparent about the drilling processes and the methods that they really intend to employ for their operations. They should in turn use the safest methods that do not harm the environment. This would instill confidence and the support for the drilling projects from the local groups.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/environment-articles/controversies-involved-in-natural-gas-drilling-4028876.html
About the Author

In this modern world the usage of oil has become essential and the oil wells for sale has emerged as the leading and most lucrative business and details about Oil Wells for Sale and oil well companies for sale can be obtained here. Investors and purchasers need not go in search of Oil wells for Sale.