PONTIAC — Three hundred, twenty-two thousand, six hundred and nine.
Activist LuAnne Kozma won't deny that it's a lot of signatures required to get her favored proposal for a statewide ban on hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," on the Nov. 2014 ballot, but after a special town hall meeting on the subject, she feels optimistic.
"I don't think we can rely on the current state government, or frankly, the future government to do this. It's a power that we, the people, have, and we need to do this for ourselves and future generations," said Kozma, the campaign director of the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan.
Approximately 100 turned out to the Oakland County Commissioners Auditorium Wednesday night to learn more on the subject and to network with others in the crowd, the vast majority of whom who seemed to be strongly against the controversial practice of collecting natural gas from underwater sources, currently taking place in several counties in Michigan.
According to organizers and county commissioners Jim Nash (D-Farmington Hills), a candidate for and Craig Covey (D-Ferndale), the process of fracking involves using a high-pressure mixture of water, sand and chemicals to break apart energy-rich rocks.
Erik Bauss, of the Michigan Oil and Gas Association, said that he frequently works with the energy industry and state regulators to safely drill in order to take advantage of home-grown resources. However, in Kozma's view and the view of many in attendance, the industry is in bed with state legislators, blind to local concerns.
"Our state regulators pretty much repeat industry talking points. They say, 'We have no plans for this county,' but they really do. It's actually surprising to me that it's an issue here, because of the high population. I'm hoping county residents will use this to make others in the state aware of what's happening," said Kozma, a Charlevoix resident.
The issue became local in large part after a state mineral rights auction in May during which Jordan Development of Traverse City purchased much of the available 18,347 acres in Oakland County. West Bloomfield resident Kathy Chiaravalli, who attended that auction as well as the meeting in May, pointed out that rights to .
"In Michigan, there’s absolutely no relationship between the starting bid of the land and the potential economic benefit. No relationship between the starting bid of the land and the potential impact. It could be on a lake with many people," Chiaravalli said Wednesday during public comment.
Chiaravalli successfully lobbied officials in her township to pass a resolution banning oil and gas drilling. However, Kozma pointed out, that may not be enough to protect the entirety of Oakland County from potential harm.
"Locally, local community after local community can band together, but at the end of the day it still sets up a situation in which some communities are protected while others are not," she said.
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2010/September/10091001.asp Combine potentially unstable cement chemical composition, with an increased risk of seismic activity associated with fracking, and i'd say you have a recipe for dangerous, expensive, long term problems - for which there are NO back up plans, and none required. Another good discussion on Forbes.com: "Cementing is not easy and it takes some time and some money. Not much compared to the drilling itself or to the value of the oil or gas obtained, but still significant. And for that reason, the cement job is susceptible to the same boneheaded decisions that are made to save a buck but end up losing billions. This is an ideal situation for strong regulations. Unfortunately, the CEMENT job is NOT REGULATED, NOT EVEN the CEMENT COMPOSITION." http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/09/10/the-fracking-solution-is-a-good-cement-job/
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.
Odessa, TX On September 11, Halliburton (yes, THOSE drilling/cement/military contractor guys) "lost" a radioactive device containing americium 241/berillium that's used in locating potential fracking sites. "Halliburton told the state that workers discovered on Sept. 11 that a lock on the container used to transport the device was missing, along with the unit, after driving a truck to a well south of Odessa from from a site near Pecos, according to the NRC report" Great. More dangers revealed in this unregulated industry. And given all that's happened this week abroad, I don't appreciate hearing that even the biggest of industry vendors are sloppy about security with radioactive materials. Especially on 9/11! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-13/halliburton-hunting-for-missing-radioactive-probe-in-west-texas.html
I'm not necessarily a "tree-hugger" or anything. I just see fracking industry insiders, finance people as well as auditors all chiming in, quite urgently, to get some regulation here. These folks I quoted earlier in Forbes, Bloomberg articles are not exactly the Sierra Club, and even THEY are saying we need to take care and do things right or it could be economic disaster. (yes, environmental disaster IS economic disaster, loss of jobs and long term liability on a balance sheet) Smart regulation based on science as well as a diversified energy plan, will encourage long term job gain and US energy independence. The short term thinking of "drill, baby, drill" with no long term plan or thought of risk aversion is, as I said before, hubris.
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
1) My coworkers that drink Detroit water said they don’t drink from a well and don’t have to worry. However, these same people get Michigan produced dairy and poultry products. These animals will be drinking very large amounts of any contaminated well water that occurs. Will the oil companies ship in drinking water for our livestock as they did for humans in PA? 2) Profrackers say there is no alternative. I drive an electric car which I plan to charge with a small wind turbine. My neighbor has been off the grid for years. He has had no issues with his turbine or neighbors or noise, etc. One profracker said not everyone can have an electric vehicle or turbine. Why not? In the past people thought having a toilet inside your house was a disgusting idea and that air conditioning, refrigeration was frivolous. We went centuries without furnaces. Now, noone thinks of building a house without these. Costs will come down with increased production. My hope is that wind and solar systems will just be normal part of home construction, for my grandchildren’s sake. Smaller homes and families = survival of our race.
Residents can write letters to their state legislators. This issue should ultimately be decided there, with laws modeled after other states, after testimony by experts with data. Not with a citizen petition bypassing the legislature. Someone tried to get me to sign a petition to ban fracking. I’m an engineer but not an expert on hydraulic fracturing, a specialized topic. I had never heard of it before reading an article in the Patch; the petition circulator could not explain what it was other than it was potentially bad for the environment. Worse yet, it was not for a new law but a constitutional amendment! After millions spent by both sides last November and despite a 30 to one ($31M to $800K) spending ratio to preserve Mr. Maroun’s bridge monopoly, all 5 constitutional amendments were solidly defeated. Michigan needs a ballot proposal to make our constitution more difficult to amend. It seems to be a new method for getting something done when you don’t have enough votes in the legislature – ask the people for an up-or-down vote on a complex issue with one-sided wording and lock it into the Constitution. No thanks! http://troy.patch.com/blog_posts/a-guide-to-ballot-proposals-4-5-6
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.
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.
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?
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)
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)
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.
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
And your generalizing using someone's name as if its some kind of insult is juvenile and cheapens your point.