Webinar to discuss shale-gas drilling in urban areas
Friday, May 14, 2010
The acronym NIMBY — “Not in My Back Yard” — is a battle cry commonly hurled by neighbors at any nearby controversy. But when the controversy murmurs simultaneously across multiple neighborhoods in the same city, the expanding chorus of affected neighbors can create an industrial-strength din.
Such was the case in Fort Worth, Texas, where prior to 2000, there were no gas wells in town. Ten years later, there are 1,675 shale-gas wells within city limits, according to Sarah Fullenwider, senior assistant city attorney for the City of Fort Worth.
She said some Fort Worth citizens who have signed gas leases are frustrated with the local process and controls.
“Many have signed leases and want the financial benefits of extracting the minerals, so they want drilling to take place,” she said. “But they don’t want the impacts of a well near their homes. They are frustrated with the ability of cities to implement local controls considering Texas laws regarding the dominant mineral estate.”
Fullenwider will be the featured speaker during a free Web-based seminar titled, “Lessons from Gas Drilling in an Urban Environment,” which will air Thursday, May 20, at 1 p.m. Sponsored by Penn State Cooperative Extension, the “webinar” will provide an overview of Fort Worth’s experience as shale-gas companies in Texas began setting up drilling operations within city limits. Read more
Drinking water clinic highlights drilled wells, cisterns and springs
http://live.psu.edu/story/46304/nw69
Friday, April 23, 2010
University Park, Pa. — Ben Franklin wrote, “when the well is dry, we know the worth of water.” But even when the well is pumping steadily, it’s still worthwhile to regularly test private water supplies.
Public water systems are required by law to protect customers and regularly test for impurities. But in Pennsylvania, 3.5 million residents are served by private water systems, such as wells, springs and cisterns, and they have no such legal oversight.
“If you own your own private supply, it’s all your own responsibility to provide clean water to yourself, the people in your family and the people who come to visit,” said Peter Wulfhorst, educator with Penn State Cooperative Extension in Pike County.
Wulfhorst will be the featured speaker in the next Penn State Extension Water Webinar, titled “Safe Drinking Water Clinic,” which will air at noon and again at 7 p.m. on April 28.
He said two types of water standards concern homeowners: primary standards pertaining to health, and secondary standards that pertain to the water’s aesthetics — its taste or smell, its appearance, or whether it stains plumbing fixtures or laundry. He said the webinar will cover both of these subjects, as well as how to protect a water supply from contaminants, which contaminants to test for and what treatments to use if contaminants are present. Read more
Webinar contrasts regional differences for shale-gas drilling
http://live.psu.edu/story/46121/nw69
Friday, April 16, 2010
Webinar contrasts regional differences for shale-gas drilling
University Park, Pa. — The grass sometimes looks greener on the other side of the fence — or in the other corner of the state — not necessarily because it actually is greener, but because a disturbance in one’s own backyard makes the local situation lose its luster.
That’s the case with some property owners in southwestern Pennsylvania as they compare their situations to landowners in the northeastern counties as the shale-gas boom continues to reverberate around the commonwealth, according to Gary Sheppard, Penn State Cooperative Extension educator from Westmoreland County. Read more
Webinar to address economic impact of shale gas drilling on March 18
Sometimes research can provide clarity to a question, and sometimes it can cloud the waters even further. That may be the case with some economic-impact studies of shale-gas drilling in Pennsylvania. At 1 p.m. on March 18, Tim Kelsey, professor of agricultural economics in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, will deliver a free Web-based seminar designed to provide an overview of some of the research used by decision-makers to assess factors of economic development in their communities.
Read the full story on Live: http://live.psu.edu/story/45180/nw69
Webinar to address recycling wastewater from gas drilling
The calls to “reduce, reuse and recycle” have long been the watchwords of resource conservation, and when it comes to disposing of wastewater from shale-gas operations, those refrains still run deep, sometimes thousands of feet beneath groundwater sources.
Read the full story on Live: http://live.psu.edu/story/44473/nw69
Previous webinars — which covered topics such as water use and quality, legal questions surrounding natural gas exploration, and gas-leasing considerations for landowners and implications for local communities — can be viewed at http://naturalgas.extension.psu.edu/webinars.htm online.
Safe water, ponds and septic systems in 2010 water-quality webinars
Safe water, ponds and septic systems in 2010 water-quality webinars
Water quality and water conservation will be the focus of five Web-based
seminars produced by Penn State Cooperative Extension this spring. Topics will
include water testing, septic systems, managing ponds and lakes, and safe
drinking water. The first webinar will cover strategies to monitor water
wells, springs and streams that are near gas-drilling sites. That presentation
will air at noon and again at 7 p.m. on Jan. 27.
Read the full story on Live: Webinar