Fracking-- just when you get your head around one environmental disaster. . .

[Clusterpod]

Over here in Western Australia, where I am led to believe there are huge reserves of shale, companies running fracking operations don't even have to provide environmental management reports.

Given the biological surveys are rarely done, or complete, we don't really know the state of the systems fracking operations are disrupting.

How are we able, then, to know the real damage they are causing?

Once again, too little science, too little protracted observation, and too much jumping in for a buck and hoping technology will be up to the task for the future clean-up.

[Pakanohida]

they built it and they came.............

LOL

Yeah, and kept going by really fast!

[Michaelangelica]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/specials/...y-the-numbers/
Information resource

[Michaelangelica]

9 December, 2011 8:41AM AEDT
Coalfields in the northern Illawarra stretch the boundaries of responsible mining
By Nick McLaren
The practice of riverbed cracking due to longwall coal mining continues in the Illawarra more than 10 years after a section of the Cataract River near Appin drained away, releasing methane through the cracks, which caught on fire.

It was a remarkable image that naturally gave rise to widespread condemnation followed by seeming agreement that such severe damage to rivers from mining should never be allowed to happen again.
The issue was addressed in great detail when the state government held a special inquiry into the southern coalfield in 2006 to specifically examine the effects of underground coal mining on "rivers, creeks, swamps and cliff lines".
So it came as a shock to a small a group of people this week to view first hand the ongoing effects of riverbed cracking in highly regulated Sydney Catchment lands.
The location was the Waratah Rivulet, located deceptively close to the Helensburgh turnoff from the F-6 southern freeway.
Inside two sets of locked gates lies the pristine bushland of the Woronora Special Area.

The area is deeming so environmentally sensitive, visitors aren't allowed to urinate in the bushes.
http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/...09/3387266.htm

[annette]

It's insane beyond words. In Queensland they are putting a mine in a nature reserve. Landholders cannot develop the land once a nature reserve agreement is signed but doesn't stop those miners!! It's just madness.

[Wolf_rt]

Here's a speech Allan Jones gave on CSG mining.

I'm not a fan of his.. but this is a good speech.

[Michaelangelica]

What the feds found

More than 20 Pavillion well owners contacted the EPA over the course of a decade, requesting a study of their groundwater. The agency began looking into the problem in 2009, beginning its research by taking samples from privately owned wells and municipal wells. They found low levels of methane and hydrocarbons, including diesel, in the groundwater.

Although the chemical levels did not exceed drinking water standards, the EPA felt there was cause for concern and advised Pavillion residents to use alternate water sources. (Currently, natural gas drilling company Encana delivers a water supply for 21 households in the area.) The federal agency moved to the next stage of testing, drilling two monitoring wells and analyzing waste pits for possible contamination. The EPA investigation ultimately yielded evidence of benzene, xylenes and hydrocarbon in the Pavillion's groundwater.

The report resulting from the EPA's Wyoming investigation is the first to analyze multiple, on-the-ground samples to determine the impact of fracking on underground water resources in areas of oil and gas development. The report is a draft of a comprehensive study the EPA study scheduled for release late 2012.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034401_EP...#ixzz1h60p11sG

[Pakanohida]

What the feds found

Although the chemical levels did not exceed drinking water standards, the EPA felt there was cause for concern

Failed my water standards by a long shot just by reading the 1st paragraph, not even getting into the rest of it.

[Pakanohida]

This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took on fracking, pushing for U.S. studies as to whether the process is hazardous to humans and food sources. After all, tainted water isn't good for drinking or for agricultural integrity in America; contaminated crops would endanger all of our backyards.

Was that another fracking earthquake?

Ohio also now sports the only state in the nation I know of with flammable tap water!

[mischief]

Oh thats okay.....they can just add that 'antiflammatory' to it, ......you know the same one thats already in soft drinks.
There sorted.....(see me dusting my hands and trotting off to watch the wind wreck my garden,a far more important crisis)