Official: Ark. natural gas regulations sufficient

A joint session of Agriculture, Forestry, and Economic Development spent nearly seven hours Tuesday discussing a package of Interim Study Proposals concerning natural gas production in Arkansas. The proposals, two of which I’m sponsoring, were first introduced during the 2011 legislation session. Since we met strong opposition, we sent the bills to study. Tuesday’s meeting marked the first step.

From BusinessWeek:

Arkansas’ top environmental official said Tuesday that she believes her department has “sufficient” regulatory authority over natural gas drilling in Arkansas but says she wants to keep additional inspectors funded through an agreement with the Game and Fish Commission.

Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality Director Teresa Marks told lawmakers that she believed the current regulations on natural gas drilling are sufficient. She spoke at a hearing on proposals to increase regulation of natural gas drillers and a process they use called hydraulic fracturing.

A Tainted Water Well, and Concern There May Be More

From The New York Times:

For decades, oil and gas industry executives as well as regulators have maintained that a drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, that is used for most natural gas wells has never contaminated underground drinking water.

The claim is based in part on a simple fact: fracking, in which water and toxic chemicals are injected at high pressure into the ground to break up rocks and release the gas trapped there, occurs thousands of feet below drinking-water aquifers. Because of that distance, the drilling chemicals pose no risk, industry officials have argued.

“There have been over a million wells hydraulically fractured in the history of the industry, and there is not one, not one, reported case of a freshwater aquifer having ever been contaminated from hydraulic fracturing. Not one,” Rex W. Tillerson, the chief executive of ExxonMobil, said last year at a Congressional hearing on drilling.

It is a refrain that not only drilling proponents, but also state and federal lawmakers, even past and presentEnvironmental Protection Agency directors, have repeated often.

But there is in fact a documented case, and the E.P.A. report that discussed it suggests there may be more. Researchers, however, were unable to investigate many suspected cases because their details were sealed from the public when energy companies settled lawsuits with landowners.

Arkansas Company Cited for Reportedly Dumping Toxic Waste in White County

From KARK:

KARK has learned an Arkansas company has been cited for reportedly dumping toxic waste into the ground in White County.

Photos obtained exclusively by KARK show illegal disposal sites used by Poseidon Energy Services, which has a facility near Pangburn.

According to a report by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, sludge used in natural gas drilling was being dumped in the ground in seven different locations near Pangburn and Searcy.

The company has not been fined and is said to be working with state agencies.

2010's Biggest Energy Disasters

From Mother Jones:

The list focuses on some of the deadliest incidents, so it leaves out other serious environmental calamities. Take, for example, the release of 538,000 pounds of chemicals, including benzene (a known carcinogen), at BP’s Texas City refinery. The release began on April 6, two weeks before the Gulf spill, and continued for 40 days. The long-term health impacts for residents of the town remain unclear. Then there’s the April 4 incident in which a Chinese ship hauling 65,000 tons of coal from Australia to China made an illegal shortcut and ran into the Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef in the world. The accident didn’t claim any human lives, but it did leave a half-mile-long gash in one of the most sensitive ecological treasures of the world.

Central Arkansas growing weary of relentless tremors

From CNN:

More than 500 measurable earthquakes have been reported in central Arkansas since September 20, ranging in magnitude from a barely noticeable 1.8 to a very noticeable 4.0 (recorded on October 11), according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Geologists can’t say whether they’ll stop anytime soon.

Steve Wilson is looking forward to the quakes going away, he said.

“In the beginning, it was fun, it was neat, it was a cool thing to experience. But now we’re wanting it to go away,” said Wilson, assistant superintendent at Woolly Hallow State Park. “We’ve had all the fun we want.”

Although drilling for natural gas has been ruled out as a cause for the quakes, experts want to continue looking at salt water disposal wells, said Scott Ausbrooks, geohazards supervisor for the Geological Survey. Disposal wells occur when drilling waster is injected back into the earth after drilling.