Tagged: hydrofracking

The past few days have been busy ones in the world of natural gas extraction:

• New hydrofracking rules from the Department of Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were met with complaints from both sides.
• A New York environmental group is questioning whether the state's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) believes wastewater is a real concern.
• And the EPA withheld a study on aquifer contamination in Wyoming at the request of the governor - who then used the delay to prepare a smear campaign.

Here's details on each:

There's a boom in natural gas production in the United States, a boom so big the market is having trouble absorbing it all.

The unusually warm weather this winter is one reason for the excess, since it reduced the need for people to burn gas to heat their homes. A bigger reason, however, is the huge increase in gas production made possible by new methods of coaxing gas out of shale rock formations.

According to a new report from the Government Accountability Office, 13 states: 

• Are unsure or don't know where some of their natural gas pipelines are located, or
• Have little or no information on pipeline reliability.

But according to New York officials, we're not one of them.