Marcellus Shale

Natural gas, new age, cutting edge, right here in America. The Marcellus Shale an area in America that spans over Southern New York, a huge part of Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, West Virginia, parts of Maryland and Virginia. There are a few other areas here in America such as Texas that natural gas can be found, but Marcellus Shale is the winner. It’s the underground landmine a means for the United States of America to not be so dependent on overseas oil. Natural gas burns cleaner then that of crude oil. It warms houses, lights up your barbeque, and fuels buses in major cities. The list goes on, there is even ways to turn natural gas into fuel for your vehicle. As wonderful as that might sound the questions are, at what cost to our health

In the Fayetteville Shale area. This is the area in North Central Arkansas that sits above the Fayetteville Shale, a rock layer that contains natural gas. This mostly rural area has been turned into a busy industrial zone. Companies are also currently fracking test wells in the Brown Dense, a layer of rock in Southern Arkansas.

The Delaware River flows from the Delaware River Basin in the state of New York, creating a natural boundary between Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey. The lower boundary of the river is urbanized and the upper boundary is rural with very little industry. If the Delaware River Basin were to be disturbed, many people would be affected. The Delaware River Basin is a major source of drinking water for many in the metro New York City area and houses many species that play an important role in the ecosystem of the Delaware River. The Basin also houses a very important resource, natural gas. The natural gas in the basin lies deep within the Marcellus shell rock formation and would need to be extracted using the hydraulic fracturing process,

Given fracking’s youth and considering its only significant sites are in the US, research is largely confined on the Marcellus region which runs across two-thirds of Pennsylvania and extends into other states (MSTEC 2011) or the Barnet region in Texas.

The Marcellus Shale underlies Western Maryland along with New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia and is the United States’ largest on-shore natural gas reserve (Marcellus Shale Safe Drilling Initiative, 2015). Maryland is unique in its fracking regulations as emphasized by former Governor Martin O’Malley, who in 2011 signed the Marcellus Shale Safe

The United States has one of the largest deposits of shale oil, so drilling for it may seem like a logical decision “…over 750 trillion cubic feet of …shale gas and 24 billion barrels of … shale oil resources…exist in…shale plays… developing these resources creates jobs and fuels our economy… the key…is through the process of hydraulic fracturing…” (Energy Tomorrow 2013). The number of jobs created by the institution of hydraulic fracturing is widely touted by proponents of hydraulic fracturing, but the number of jobs directly created may actually be smaller than claimed. In Pennsylvania, many jobs were created from hydraulic fracturing, though most are not as a direct result from the institution of hydraulic fracturing. In the third quarter of last year, 216,946 jobs were created in Pennsylvania as a result of hydraulic fracturing…but only 30,000 of those jobs are actually from fields that are closely related to hydraulic fracturing. “It (number of jobs created) covers industries whose connection to oil and gas development is tenuous …ranging from freight trucking to highway, street, and bridge construction… agency officials …admit that the figure—when used to estimate jobs supported by shale—amounts to little more than a guess” (“Foran”). Even though hydraulic fracturing is continuing to create jobs, the number is starting to decline as a result of the success of hydraulic

Drilling of fracking holes away from the human population or from any of the resources used to sustain towns and cities.

Lack of integrity at shale gas well sites has resulted in several contamination events such as blowouts and gas venting due to fluid leaking. In Pennsylvania between 2008 and 2011, there were 85

Dallas-Fort Worth Texas has one of the largest potential shale extraction sights, called the Barnett Shale. This area also has one of the highest urban population growth rates in the U.S. which has led to massive concern over the use of fracking to reach the shale gas. In 2011 a survey of Dallas-Fort Worth residents found that nearly one-third of the population ranked gas drilling to be the greatest hazard to the water supply. This concern comes from the use of chemicals in the fluid used to cause the fractures as well as the methane that can be released when shale is fractured. Contamination can occur from fluid when it escapes from leaks in the pipe or fittings. Several states including Ohio and Arkansas have changed their standards for well construction to help prevent these leaks. While methane with not affect the quality of water it is explosive when contained in tight spots. Due to this well heads need to be properly vented so that the methane can be released (Jackson,

Fracking is an industrial activity that requires the establishment of a work site, called a "well pad," from which multiple horizontal wells can be drilled. A well pad and associated infrastructure (roads, impoundments, pipelines, etc.) covers an average of 8.8 acre There are a number of stressors from hydraulic fracturing operations that may affect wildlife health. A study done by a USA Government Accountability Office showed that “of the 575 National Wildlife Refuges in the United States, 105 contain a total of 4406 oil and gas wells” (Burton, 2014). The construction and transportation of fracking operations lead to a number of earth-disturbing activities, such as clearing, grading, and excavating land to create a pad to support the drilling equipment or other necessary industrial process materials. In general, well pads increase the potential for sediment erosion on and off location because of the destruction of vegetation. These newly constructed well pads also often require construction of access roads to transport equipment and other materials to the site. If sufficient erosion controls to contain or divert sediment away from surface water are not established, then surfaces exposed to precipitation and runoff could carry sediment and other harmful pollutants into nearby rivers, lakes, and streams. The construction of

It has long been known that large amounts of natural gas reside in deep layers of sedimentary rock such as shale. However, this gas could not be extracted until recent years due to previous limitations of technology making it economically unfeasible. This is now possible due to developments in drilling technology that now allow drillers to drill horizontally. Millions of gallons of water and chemicals are then injected at extremely high pressure that fractures the rock surrounding the drill hole, allowing trapped gas to escape. This process is called hydraulic fracturing, but is known colloquially as “fracking.”

Natural gas has taken the energy market by storm as a result of the eight years of democratic influence this country has seen. America in the past six years has begun moving away from coal and converting to natural gas. Instead of harvesting coal in the Appalachian Mountain region, new energy companies have moved out west in an effort to harvest the abundance of natural gas located beneath the surface; they do so by a process known as hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing is a drilling method where high volumes of chemicals mixed with water are injected into the naturally occurring surface cracks. This is done all in an effort to release the small pockets of natural gas trapped within these surface cracks. In recent years, throughout the Midwest, hydraulic fracturing has been linked to the contamination of many farmers and homeowner’s wells. There have been reports of triggered earthquakes as a result of hydraulic fracturing. These cases have all come to find that hydraulic fracturing techniques played a role in these incidents; energy companies have failed to acknowledge or compensate individuals affected. Hydraulic fracturing is destroying our natural environmental stability in the Midwest and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and federal government have done nothing to stop it.

“The members of the Marcellus Shale Coalition develop and drill wells in an environmentally responsible manner, including the use of hydraulic fracturing to complete a well for production. Hydraulic fracturing has been an established and proven practice for 60 years in Pennsylvania and around the country, and has been regulated successfully by state agencies. There have been no identified groundwater contamination incidents due to hydraulic fracturing.”

Engineering and surveying, construction, hospitality, construction, equipment manufacturing as well as environmental permitting are only a percentage of the professions encountering the positive gradually expanding influences of expanding oil in addition to natural gas shale improvement. Gallegos & Varela asserts that “a few critiques of oil and natural gas generation assert that Hydraulic Fracturing has critical environmental results. The fact of the matter is, while all advancement has challenges, Hydraulic Fracturing innovation has numerous environmental benefits and it is utilized under close supervision by state and government authorities” (26). Studies conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Ground Water Protection Council have affirmed that there is no immediate connection between Hydraulic Fracturing activities and groundwater contamination.

The United States has over twenty large shale oil formations, chief of which is the Eagle Ford shale, whose boom in recent times revealed an endowment with respect to hydrocarbon, comparable to Bakken/Three Forks; which is a tight oil formation county in Montana and North Dakota.