Davethehiker Loc: South West Pennsylvania

Let me explain: I took this photo less than a mile from my house. If you are heading East on I-70 and get of at exit 25, this is what you see at the bottom of the ramp.

Huge gas reserves have been discovered deep under the earth and with a process called "Fracking", it's possible to capture the gas. I have been told that in Pennsylvania, and Ohio we have more energy reserves than Saudi Arabia! Many of my neighbors that hold the mineral rights to their land will become overnight millionaires. I do not hold the mineral right to my land, but I'm happy for those that do.

This has all become very political with the government wants a share of the wealth and of course the environmentalists have become involved. Workman from Texas have the skill and knowledge of how to recover this gas. They are moving into the area and there have been incandescence of them getting into fights with each other and a gun fight or two. As a result, Texans have become the butt of local jokes.

Look closely at the picture and read the small sign with green printing in the lower left corner. ;-) That's my green Toyota.

Fracking Gasholes

Country's Mama Loc: Michigan

LOL to the sign. What a mess, but I guess I would rather see our oil coming from from here rather then being dependent on foreign oil. I have mixed feelings about the fracking.

tschmath Loc: Los Angeles

It's not oil, it's natural gas. We're gonna need oil for a long time to come.

Davethehiker Loc: South West Pennsylvania

Glad you liked it. The mess has nothing to do with the fracking; at least not directly. This place is far out in farm country and because of all the drilling, there is a lot of heavy truck traffic. The tiny intersection can no longer safely handle the traffic. They are building a clover leaf. That's what the mess is.

Personally, I'm pro fracking. The media blows everything up and distorts the truth. They show clips of people who can light the gas coming out of their water taps. What they fail to report is, that is normal. It's called "natural gas" for a reason. It's natural for inflammable gas to be found in ground that is rich in fossil fuel. Water and gas often live together in water wells. Burning the gas proves nothing except you have gas under the land. Removal of the coal was much more of a disaster. I own thirteen acres of land that was "long wall mined" some thirty years ago. This means that a thick band of coal was totally removed and the entire mountain top fell the thickness of the vain of coal that was removed. Removal of coal does mess with underwater streams. It's still beautiful and lush with plant and wild life. My house was built on the land after it had ample time to settle. I suspect that soon the gas deep under my land will be sucked away. Maybe I'm naive but I'm not worried about it.

I do have two "partials of combustion" detectors in my house. If they ever go off, I'm out of here! I think it would probably mean that I have a gas pipe leak going to my furnace.

gmcase Loc: Galt's Gulch

I'm all for more fracking too. A good frack keeps the gas moving!

Country's Mama Loc: Michigan

opps missed that. :oops:

RTR Loc: West Central Alabama

I suppose the biggest political problem is that Halliburton is probably the number 1 'fracker' in the neighborhood. All those horror stories about well fracking are fairy tales. They have been fracking gas wells around here for 25 years or more.

Look at this satellite shot of my 'neighborhood'. http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=33.431728,-87.473145&spn=0.087245,0.164795&t=h&z=13

See all those little dots with squiggly lines coming from them? Those are coal bed methane well sights and their service roads.

The weather was bad here today but is supposed to be better tomorrow. I will try to go take some snapshots of some of these locations. They are totally benign.

tschmath Loc: Los Angeles

Are you saying the atmosphere is benign? My understanding is that the problem is with the groundwater, not the atmosphere. What I read stated that the levels of benzene in the drinking water is through the roof, as well as the levels of hundreds of other chemicals. You aren't experiencing any of that?

Michael O' Loc: Midwest right now

Davidthehiker from good 'ole PA. Fracking is merely short for hydraulic fracturing (of rock strata that has gas or oil locked within it. The pressuring is generated by a hydraulic pump driven by a Cat or similar above-ground engine, Our Cat dealers in Colorado and Alberta were selling many D-398 and D-379 and D-353 (V-12 and V-8 and I-6 6 1/4 inch bore diesel engines) into this application 30 and 35 years ago. Now drilling has improved so that "horizontal drilling is done after a satisfactory vertical depth is reached, which is how they are able to cover a miles-wide area tapped from a small, maybe 2 or 3 acre surface site. Of course the extremist environmentalists would rather have us all living like cavemen again, while protecting a given worm or tiny fish that has no purpose useful to man. And, as someone alluded to, the United States now has the largest oil and natural gas reserves of any nation on earth. And good neighbor Canada has huge reserves and is wishing to sell to us, but Obama-land communism has forced them to begin a pipeline to their West Coast in order to sell to China instead. Our only problem is that we currently have a federal government that prevents (safe and monitored) drilling on any coast, and also not in a million mile Alaskan wasteland used by two caribou herds that have flourished amidst a transporting pipeline. And Fed regulations have prevented any new refinery from being built in the
US since about 1960 or so. Our "beltway" people live in a different world, and do not represent the electorate. With the salaries they pay themselves they can afford $4 and soon $5 gasoline. With the special retirement pay and separate medical program they have for themselves they have it fat and sassy and don't need to worry whether the electorate survives or not. Witness the socialization of medicine forced upon us, modeled after England's failed government-controlled system which England is now finally considering privatizing ! Non-medical bureaucrats will soon be, or are now controlling access to the medical system starting with the highest trained (thus most costly) -- the brain surgeons. A recent recorded call from a Chicago brain surgeon confirmed this. when he was "de-authorized" from an operation. If you are 45, don't become ill in Obamma's world within the next year or later.
Nov 2012 cannot come too soon for the good of the citizenry. VOTE. Of course most of us won't be allowed to vote Chicago style -- early and often, and twice for all pets and dead relatives. You have to be a community organizer to understand how that works.
Michael O'

RTR Loc: West Central Alabama

No offense, but I believe 'your understanding' comes from the main stream media.

No, we are not experiencing that. Quite the opposite actually. Our water is some of the best in the country as shown by the periodic test results that, by law, are mailed to every household.

I sell industrial equipment and so I have worked with many of the drillers, finishers ('frackers etc) and gas producers (pumpers and compressers). Coal bed methane production was actually pioneered 25 miles up the road from here. They began experimenting with it in the early 1980's and with help from the dreaded Halliburton and others the process to effectively remove the gas from the coal seams was refined.

Take a look at my google earth map link above. Look at it in satellite view. Now scroll it around at a level that shows the dots. There are literally THOUSANDS of these wells in this county and hundreds, if not thousands, more wells in the surrounding counties. Don't you think the rabid environmentalists exist here too? Don't you think if there was a HINT of a problem they would not be sounding it from the top of every roof?

I will post pictures today so you can see what is left when the drilling is over and all that is left is a well head producing our own energy.

RTR Loc: West Central Alabama

Dowell Schlumberger had some pump trucks driven by turbines....aka jet engines. Those were really cool :-o

bull drink water Loc: pontiac mi.

of course they would never admit fracking was dangerous, even if it was.it's all about the money.look at the list of damages they have done to the land, air, and water over time.look a the junk they put in our food.look how they deny everything untill the proof is so great they can't deny it any longer.look how they get us to argue for them by convincing us that screwing over us is in our best interest.
last example,watch a medicine commercial,the side effects are worse than the condition they treat.if they sold a pop or food with all those side effects,would you eat it?

Davethehiker Loc: South West Pennsylvania

Bull drink water, who is "they" you speak of? Did you bother to read what the knowledgeable people who posted just above you wrote? You just lumped drug manufactures, frackers, and soda pop together??!!

Don't believe everything you read in the press or see on TV. It's sad how misinformed the press and media can be. The press seems to form an opinion and distort the truth to match the dramatic story that they hope sells. It's sad and irresponsible.

I have had the press seek me out in the past. I now know better than to give them my valuable time.

Al FR-153 Loc: Chicago Suburbs

Dave - Don't know if you realize it but, the first gas well in the USA was right down the road from you on 22, in Murrysville. There is quite a bit of 'gas' history right there in the area. With the amount of gas that was around there, I am surprised that they need to frack.

LOL on the sign though.

Davethehiker Loc: South West Pennsylvania

Al FR-153, no I did not know that. I just moved to this beautiful part of the world after I retired from my second career. This corner of Pennsylvania is beautiful! That and the freckle faced, red haired beauty that I just married caused me to move here. The beautiful dairy farms on mountain sides are spotted with the occasional wellhead that no more mar the beauty than a bail of hay. In the winter the mountains are covered with a beautiful white blanket of snow; I remain warm in my mountaintop home that is heated by the economical natural, clean burning gas from under the bountiful land around me.

Let me share some of the beauty that surrounds me. The deer were taken from within my home looking out my widows. The farm photos were taken along my property line of my neighbors farms.

Fall deer


Winter deer taken in the rain a few days ago.


nearest neighbor's farm


Another neighbors farm