Portal:FrackSwarm

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The FrackSwarm Portal

Welcome!

Welcome to FrackSwarm, the shared information tool on fracking issues (hydraulic fracturing or hydrofracking), mining operations, companies, environmental impacts, clean alternatives, regulation, grassroots organizing, industry lobbying, and much more. Also please visit our page, United States and fracking.

State-by-state information on fracking in the United States (or click on the map below)

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General Fracking Information

Map of the Bakken Formation.

Fracking issues

Fracking's environmental impacts

Major oil and natural gas producing areas in the U.S. that employ fracking

Map of Marcellus Shale Region

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Fracking Companies

Energy companies and operators that frack

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Fracking Front Groups

Here are some of the industry front groups and trade groups advocating for fracking:

Energy in Depth (EID): Energy in Depth is a pro oil-and-gas drilling industry front group formed by the American Petroleum Institute, the Petroleum Association of America and dozens of additional industry organizations for the purpose of denouncing legislation proposed by Colorado U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette to regulate underground hydrofracking fluids. Energy in Depth denounced DeGette's proposed fracking legislation as an “unnecessary financial burden on a single small-business industry, American oil and natural gas producers.” In June, 2009, Energy in Depth started a multimillion dollar lobbying and public relations campaign aimed at derailing public health legislation that would require the disclosure of the chemicals used in fracking fluids. In addition to a website, EID's campaign includes a Twitter feed, a Facebook group, a YouTube channel and an aggressive advertising campaign. Shortly before the documentary Gasland first aired on HBO, the organization issued a "Gasland Debunked" portal on its site to discredit the film and its director, but skips over many of the key facts. Fox, along with numerous scientists and academics, penned a 40-page document titled "Affirming Gasland" in response to "Debunking Gasland." After Josh Fox's film was nominated for the Academy Award, Energy in Depth went on the attack again, writing a press release titled, “This nomination is fitting, as the Oscars are aimed at praising pure entertainment.” The Guardian debunked the response.

Joint Landowners Coalition of New York (JLCNY): The JLCNY is overwhelmingly supportive of industry drilling into the Marcellus Shale. JLNY describes itself as "a 501c 6 a non-for-profit corporation." It says it "represent[s] 17 counties and 37+ coalitions. Estimated numbers of households are currently over 20,000, representing approximately 70,000 people and over 800,000 acres throughout New York's Southern Tier." Like EID, JNLY has its own "Debunking Gasland page.

Marcellus Shale Coalition: Marcellus Shale Coalition is a well-funded industry group that is working to oppose efforts to regulate fracking and block efforts to protect drinking water.

Marcellus Shale Committee: Marcellus Shale Committee is an earlier industry trade group that appears to be largely superseded by the Marcellus Shale Coalition.

NGVehicles: NGVehicles, also known as Clean Natural Gas Vehicles, is an industry-funded lobbying organization. The Center for Media and Democracy revealed that they were instrumental in writing the NAT GAS Act that was unveiled by the US Congress in April 2011.

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Did you know...

Advancements in technology over the past few decades, combined with rising oil and electricity prices, have led to a large increase in drilling horizontal wells for natural gas and oil. Fracking - the blasting of water, sand, and chemicals into shale rock to create fissures and release oil and gas - is taking place in 31 U.S. states.

Fracking explained: opportunity or danger

There were more than 493,000 active "natural" gas wells in the U.S. in 2009, which is almost double the number in 1990. Around 90 percent of these have used fracking.

The Marcellus Shale is a mass of shale deposits in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and neighboring states. As one of the largest "natural" gas fields in North America, it is one of the top targets of the gas industry. Energy companies have honed in on the region, as well as in other major shale deposits throughout the country, including the Haynesville Shale, Fayetteville Shale, Eagle Ford Shale and Barnett Shale.

In December 2011, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency linked fracking to groundwater contamination for the first time in Wyoming. The agency is currently undergoing a multiyear national study of the effects the process has on water supplies.

Fracking is not regulated by federal statutes governing water safety, because industry lobbyists obtained an exemption from this law, known as the "Halliburton loophole." Although no complete list of the chemicals used by each drilling company exists, information obtained from environmental clean-up sites demonstrates toxic substances.

Don't Frack Me Bro

An April 2011 report filed with the U.S. House of Representatives, showed that 29 chemicals used in some 650 different fracking products are carcinogens, subject to regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act for their risks to human health.

A 2011 investigation by the New York Times, based on thousands of internal EPA documents, "reveal that the wastewater, which is sometimes hauled to sewage plants not designed to treat it and then discharged into rivers that supply drinking water, contains radioactivity at levels higher than previously known, and far higher than the level that federal regulators say is safe for these treatment plants to handle. ...Other documents and interviews show that many E.P.A. scientists are alarmed, warning that the drilling waste is a threat to drinking water in Pennsylvania. Their concern is based partly on a 2009 study, never made public, written by an E.P.A. consultant who concluded that some sewage treatment plants were incapable of removing certain drilling waste contaminants and were probably violating the law."

In a March 2012 Rolling Stone piece, journalists Jeff Goodell writes: "An even larger threat is the flowback waste that is pumped out after a well is fracked. It's a salty brine, mildly radioactive, and laced not just with toxic chemicals but with natural hydrocarbons and heavy metals like barium and benzene, which are known carcinogens even in minute quantities."

According to a 2009 article published in ProPublica, three company spokespeople and a regulatory official said that as much as 85% of the fluids used during hydraulic fracturing is regularly left after wells are drilled in the Marcellus Shale. According to the article, this means that "for each modern gas well drilled in the Marcellus and places like it, more than 3 million gallons of chemically tainted wastewater could be left in the ground forever. Drilling companies say that chemicals make up less than 1 percent of that fluid. But by volume, those chemicals alone still amount to 34,000 gallons in a typical well."

The impact of fracking on wildlife has been documented in a 900 page Environmental Impact Statement filed by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation in September 2011.

Environmental reporter and activist Iris Marie Bloom has been interviewing residents in Pennsylvania to document how fracking has impacted them. In February 2012, she reported on the experience of Janet McIntyre, who lives in an area where she is surrounded by 30 gas wells: "Janet described her own water as foaming out of the tap on two occasions, which she refers to as 'attacks' because it felt their water was under attack by the gas drilling company. She said it was purple. Other residents have reported their water turning orange, red, and brown."

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Fracking films

Documentary Film Gasland Explores the Harms Caused by Hydrofracking

Gasland Trailer

Gasland is a 2010 documentary about unconventional natural gas drilling, or hydraulic fracturing. Its director, Josh Fox, lives in the Upper Delaware River Basin, on the border between Pennsylvania and New York State, part of the area of Marcellus Shale.

In May 2008, Fox received a letter from a natural gas mining company, who wanted to lease 19.5 acres of land from Fox for $100,000. On an interview on NPR's Fresh Air, Fox said the company stated,"'We might not even drill. We don't even know if there's gas here. It's going to be a fire hydrant in the middle of a field — very little impact to your land. You won't hardly know we're here.' " Instead of saying yes, Fox decided to travel around the country to see how the process of natural gas drilling affected other communities and homeowners, producing the documentary Gasland.

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Citizen groups working on fracking issues

Fracking opponent Abram Loeb

A number of groups are working on various impacts of fracking, whether it's water issues, air pollution and other drilling impacts. Many of these groups are community based and working on local fracking issues. To find a group near you, visit FrackSwarm's page on Citizen groups working on fracking issues.

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