typical Covey grandstanding on an issue that is not county business.

hate on the oil and gas companies, but why don't you walk to work and heat your home with wood? do that and then lecture us.

Before you all say "no" please do all your home work about fracking... How deep is the ground water?...how deep is the Gas to be recovered?..how are wells constructed and what are the measures to protect the water...is it really true about "all" the water contamination...do your home work!!...The industry fracks all over this country without any issues..and many of those places have LOTS OF JOBS!!!!.

Mike , one word, Enbridge. Please do YOUR homework. Ask how the people in Kalamazoo are doing. Yes, it was Canadian crude.
That being said, what are these companies going to do if they pollute the ground water? walk away with a small fine?, that doesn't restore the environment?
We live on a peninsula where the water table is high in some areas, you have the burden of proof, not the other way around.

I agree Mike there are alot of jobs that are created with this technology and it would be great to pump up the coffers for everyone here in Michigan! That said, I do think the state and it's very unique and most important natural resource = Fresh Water should be considered above all else.The Great Lakes hold 20% of the world's fresh water supply and 80% of the U.S. supply. When looking at the supply as a "Faucet" of fresh water for the global population's needs in the future - It makes no logical sense to intoduce this new technology and possible unknown health concerns right at the source. It would seem to make sense that this would be the absolute last place mankind would want to take that chance! There are good deposits like Michigan's elsewhere. We are currently fracking in many other places so lets take some time to fine tune the process and study it before possibly poisoning the well.

Theresa:
You do know do you not that there are already thousands of wells that have already been fraced in Michigan. The practice of Hydraulic Fracture Stimulation (Fracing) of wells has been used through out Michigan since the mid 1950's. Most of these frac jobs have been done one vertical wells, but the fracing process is the the exact same, for both vertical and horizontal wells. So far there has been no harm to water supplies, nor have property values declined at any time in the last 60 years because of this technique.

Strangely, most of the people that live in the areas that have been drilled in Pennsylvania,and Ohio are perfectly content with the results of the drilling. (We have two family farms in Ohio that had wells drilled and fraced on them in the 1970's, we have NEVER HAD A PROBLEM with the wells). The Only people that are making noise in Pennsylvania,and Ohio are those that do not have any mineral interest or are renting and are not getting any benefit from the drilling. The obvious solution is get a lawyer and sue so you can get paid.

Hey Lowell,
Why not preface your comments with who you are?
http://gomarcellusshale.com/profile/LowellToddArmstrong
Drink a big old glass of benzine and get back to me with how you feel after.

Lianne:
Who I am (Part 3)

My only interest in the GoMarcellus.com website is in my family's Farm Acreage in Ohio for the Utica Shale drilling (note that most of my posts are in the Geauga County, Ohio Group). And to watch the ignorance on display, by those who know nothing about basic Geology, Rock Mechanics or Fluid Mechanics. The simple physical truth is that you could hook up every power plant in the US together, and you could still not get a hydraulic fracture to grow the the 5000' that it would require to break from the gas saturated zones that we are targeting into the drinking water aquifers. IT SIMPLY REQUIRES TO MUCH HORSEPOWER.

SO that is who I am. Do you have anymore questions?

Lianne:

Who I am (Part 2)

I live in Texas because that is were my work is, but I remain a Midwestern at heart. It has always been my intend to retire on to one of the farms in Ohio. The big cash crop in that part of Ohio is Maple Syrup, Both farms have big Sugar Bushes (A woods made up of sugar maples). My cousin's farm (My dad's farm) is now completely rigged so he runs his evaporator from the free natural gas he gets off the fraced gas wells. He does not have to cut and split all the cords of wood that we used to have to do so it is pretty much a one man operation. Also the royalty's off the gas production have helped pay the taxes on the farm when it was a bad year for sugaring.

I have drilled thousands of wells for various companies since I have been in the exploration business, we have fraced about a third of those wells. We have neve had a problem with any of them. I have never drilled a well in Michigan, but several of my buddies from Tech stayed and work in Michigan and I know from them that a much higher percentage of wells in Michigan are fraced than are those that were drilled on the Gulf Coast.

(to be continued)

Lianne:
If you would like to know who I am, I will be happy to bore you my background (Part 1)

I grew up in Waterford (Waterford Mott 1975). Both my parents were farm kids from Ohio, my Dads family farm has been in our family for almost two hundred year. But my Dad was the Youngest son in a family that the farm goes to the Oldest son (the only way to keep a farm together). So after WWII he got a suitcase a handshake. My Mom still owns her family farm along with my aunt . Even though my brothers and sisters grew up in Michigan we spent a lot of time on the farms down in Ohio.

In the 1970's My Uncle's Farm (My Dads Family Farm), and my Grandfather's Farm (My Mom's Farm) both had Clinton Sand Gas Wells drilled on them. All of these wells were FRACED. This process of drilling wells interested me so after high school I went to Michigan Tech and got a degree in Geological Engineering (1980).

I was hired on by Tenneco Oil out of school down in Houston, and have lived Texas and worked in the Oil and Gas Exploration business ever since. However, I return to Michigan and Ohio several times ever year. My family still all lives in Michigan. My Mom still lives in the same house that myself and my six siblings grew up in. I have a brother and sister who live in Bloomfield, I saw this article because my sister sent it to me.
(To be Continued)

Lowell,
I know for a fact that fracking is done in Michigan. However, when energy companies make mistakes, they have a very poor track record of making ammends to the people and enviroments they hurt. Enbridge, BP, Shell etc.
While you make think we are all rubes because we didn't get a degree in geology, we understand the the Great Lakes is one of the ONLY sources of fresh water on the planet. If you were the sole owner of all these natural resources then you could do what ever you pleased. I can question the millions of gallons of toxic chemcals that are pumped into the ground to extract gas and ask, where do they go? Why is so much fresh water being used in the fracking process? because in Michigan we don't have salt water, the fracking must use millions of gallons of fresh water.
When Nestle NA decided to bottle warter n the west side of the state, they claimed that it would have no ill effects, yet, people wells stared drying up.
I constantly hear promises of how there will be no ill effects, yet when the worst case scenerio occurs, the responsible parties lawyer up and it's the residents who cannot afford high end attorneys that suffer.

The amount of water needed to frack is disgustingly higher than initially thought.
To frack just ONE well requires from 5 - 21 million gallons of fresh water, which then becomes permanently destroyed/poisoned with chemicals. The recovered contaminated 'slippery' water can NEVER be returned to ground water aquifers, so it is 'stored' in underground injection wells. Remember the 2010 Marshall MI spill ? -- which is still not cleaned up -- by Enbridge, the company with >800 spills in the last decade. How long before we DISCOVER the mistakes (spills, leaks) with water ?
Still not convinced ? Get loads of extensively documented information, complete with resources, at; www.BanMichiganFracking.org
If you do understand the issue, and KNOW it must be banned in Michigan, see --
www.Letsbanfracking.org. ........ This is a ballot initiative petition drive; obtaining signatures begins 4/12/13; after kick-off events around the State, eg; FERNDALE Library 4/6/13

Hey, Ferndale 1986: I do. Walk to work. And heat with wood. Both. And I agree with Theresa.

And your generalizing using someone's name as if its some kind of insult is juvenile and cheapens your point.

Kat: Information on LuAnne Kozma's organization can be found at http://letsbanfracking.org.

I agree, our lakes are very valuable. They are having the same kind of fight in the upper peninsula. One article is saying a mining company wants to take 150,000 gallons of water from Lake Superior and put the watsewater back into creeks that will lead back into our lakes. Clean water in our state needs protection.

"Pure Michigan" - says it all. It would be an economic disaster if we foul our biggest asset. We can always find/use alternative sources of energy. Not so with water. And the expense of cleaning or storing waste water is prohibitive. Ask California (dealing with their nitrates from farming) or Texas (fracking waste water).

To put favor in gas over clean, safe, water is foolish. Lynn, it's a no-brainer to most, but not all will understand this oh-so-basic-truth! After all, some will be left behind. Unfortunate for them!

Well, Ferndale, if you feel that clean drinking water isn't county business, then why do we have an Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner? By the way, he wasn't at the meeting last night either--despite the fact that he is up for re-election.
Sorry, if you felt lectured instead of educated by my comments. I found your comment kinda funny since my husband has biked to work for over 20 years--yes, including winters. My son does also, having chosen energy efficiency over owning a car. I probably would consider it myself if I didn't need to carry a trunk load of tools with me for my job. As for heating with wood, I'm not sure our building code allows wood furnaces, but my brother and cousin who live further north love theirs. I hope you are right and the oil and gas industries will protect our water, our health and our economy, but I'm not willing to bet my family's future on it.

If everyone practiced a little better conservation and didn't waste so much, and if we all became better stewards of our natural resources, we would be in a lot better shape. The truth is we are using up our natural resources at an accelerated rate with no signs of curtailing the waste. I agree with Lynn, Barb, Cheryl and many others on this issue. We have a lot to loose and much to protect.

Not to mention the risks and potential costs of healthcare if we are all drinking - who knows what.

Right now, there is NO federal oversight of fracking because Cheney and industry friends literally wrote the legislation carefully sheilding fracking from oversight. Also, companies are claiming they must protect "proprietary information", that is, their "recipes" for their fracking fluid. Currently, there are NO disclosure requirements.

I think we also know how little $ strapped states have to handle such a complicated and expensive undertaking of trying to regulate at the state level, which means functionally, NO oversight.

At the behest of Conservative industry leaders and industry auditors alike, the Obama administration is trying to pass some basic safety standards at least on federal lands. Industry grandfather George Mitchell "The administration is trying to tighten up controls, I think It’s a good idea. They should have very strict controls. " Warning particularly: "The smaller independent drillers are wild" http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2012/07/19/billionaire-father-of-fracking-says-government-must-step-up-regulation/
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/03/24/auditors-say-federal-officials-need-to-step-up-oversight-on-gas-lines-tied-to/

All these risks should be factored in the REAL costs of this energy source.

Scott -

The average estimate is 2-5 million gal/per site. For example, Pennsylvania uses about 10 million gallons of water per day for Marcellus Shale drilling.

The water in most US sites come from the same aquafir as residents drinking water. Essentially, the same "well" underground.
"Does it have a net effect of reducing the amount of easily extractable fresh water near the surface? " Yes, having big problems in Texas exacerbated by drought, difficulty in maintianing water pressure in many residential areas.
"How long does it take the water deeply injected into the earth to rise back toward the surface as fresh water? " No one knows.
Contaminants? Yup. Although it's difficult to determine extent since we don't even know what chemicals to test for, since there's no disclosure.

Then there's the earthquakes. Seismic events related to energy development have been measured in 13 US states, also in U.K.
This article is a pretty good overview of some of the proven issues and problems.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-23/drought-helps-fracking-foes-build-momentum-for-recycling.html

Ferndale - the fantasy is thinking that a completely unregulated "goldrush" with a technology involving much risk will not involve short cuts and invite environmental and financial disaster at some point.

The fantasy is to think we can live easily and without risk by putting all of our eggs in one basket (fossil fuels).

Our energy policy should be like our financial portfolio - diversified to spread risk. It's hubris to do otherwise.

Ah, but to convey a heaping amount of common sense, Erin! Right on!

Makes it all too easy for the industry to play the blame game, doesn't it?!

Agreed, Haulin! Greed. Let's teach our kids by showing them movies in elementary school, about the importance of fracking! Ahem, this is exactly what was shown in my child's classroom just yesterday! My child knows far more about fracking than the toddler-style presentation that was given, and could have stood up and given the facts to the entire classroom! Let's teach our kids the truth, let's be real, because the schools and the industry appear to have just the opposite planned.

There was recently a scientist from the usgs that acknoweldged a plausible link between fracking and 'seismic movements'. I encourage you to check out google earth, and locate recent earthquakes. As you zoom in, you just may find frack sites within a couple miles from the seismic area. Try it out and see for yourself..

Thank you, Erin for enlightening the opposers to the drive to ban fracking in michigan. A radioactive booboo in TX? Nice! Just another necessary casualty, right? All for the UBER important natural fuel rush. (eh, who needs water. just feed em fuel, that'll suffice, after all, there'll be plenty of that to go around. Health? eh, that's for the birds too.)

Morally -

FYI - The latest on Halliburton's fracking related radioactive 'Oooops' in Texas on September 11th.
They've just called in the National Guard to help with week two of their search. Makes me a little nervous at the escalating level of concern. But hey, who wants "job killing" regulation of this industry?

http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2012/0918/National-Guard-aids-Halliburton-in-search-for-missing-radioactive-rod

Oil and gas industry experts can testify ..... How to make money !! It's not their job or responsibility, to identify the safest way. ( That's the fox telling you, he's taking care of the chickens!) As an engineer, I'm surprised you would believe this. We should ALL do research on this topic, using a variety of resources, not from big oil/gas (or DEQ Hal Fitch, who works with them). Anyone who approves of FRACKING, does not understand it. Do you realize, from 5 million to 21 million gallons of fresh water are permanently chemical-contaminated per each fracked well ? And this destroyed water must NEVER be returned to the water table. This presents two problems; 1) oil companies taking Michigan fresh water (with Great Lake levels at lowest in history) -- for free ! and 2) Storing this frack-contaminated water in underground 'injection wells' forever --- without it escaping to an aquifer. LetsBanFracking.org is a NEW ballot initiative (beginning 4/12/13) which does NOT involve constitutional amendment.