New York City and Philadelphia concerns about what fracking might mean for their water supplies simply don’t hold water and reflect a more basic desire – they want the land, all of it, for their own enjoyment.

The blogs and newspapers are ablaze with residents of metropolitan areas claiming the need to “protect” their drinking water from the possibility of fracking in the Delaware River Basin. New York City and Philadelphia “stakeholders” have become quite vocal in resource issues…

New York State waits for natural gas development to return to the state where it all started, as if the Empire State was really Who-ville at Christmas. Christmas will come, of course, but meanwhile the Keystone State has Christmas in July.

Last week New Yorkers commemorated the fifth anniversary of the de facto moratorium that has prohibited high volume hydraulic fracturing activity from advancing our state’s economy. Just a couple days later, the executive director of the Marcellus…

Josh Fox and friends assume they own the land and are at war to claim it from upstate landowners they view as nothing more than annoying squatters. Their aims are all too clear from recent quotes and lawsuits against farm interests.

The war on property rights started five years ago for many of us when the radical environmental organizations listed below came after our mineral rights with respect to natural gas. I distinctly remember discussions at that time with others who were…

Shale gas activists are predictable true believers, the sort who are always around regardless of the issue, and we should never be discouraged at what sometimes appear to be victories on their side. They are losing the war.

Now and then, the opposition to shale gas development momentarily appears to gain some traction here and there. This invariably worries some on our side who become dispirited as they see irrational, fact-deprived opponents seemingly win a few battles.…

Two recent shale gas events, one at Balcombe, in the UK, and another at Dimock, in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, provide great lessons on the rise and fall of anti-fracking causes, which prosper on fear and fade away with revelation of the facts.

Let’s compare the Great Gas Gala in Balcombe with the Cabot Annual Gas Picnic in Susquehanna Pennslyvania

As Upstream put it about Balcombe:

The company is said to be bemused at why a ‘Great Gas Gala’ protest is being staged…

Shawn Bennett of Energy In Depth:

"In a recent article from Mother Jones about wastewater disposal in Ohio, the writer (Thomas Stackpole) unfortunately focused more on hysteria than the facts.  As just one example, the author asserted that Ohio has looser regulations than our neighbors, a statement that is simply is not true.  In fact, Ohio has some of the most…

Why, when natural gas development has a nearly 200 year history in the U.S., and hydraulic fracturing has been taking place for over half a century without polluting a groundwater supply, are our DRBC officials holding my county and New York’s governor holding his entire state hostage and not allowing landowners to develop their resources?

Fredonia, New York, is where it all started – in 1820, no less.

Yet, you would think by the reaction of some folks in New York and the Upper…

UPDATE (5:05 pm ET, 7/23/2013): Ohio State University is again announcing big news concerning research on Ohio’s shale development.  Just four months after announcing a research partnership with West Virginia University, Ohio’s largest public university has announced an interest in studying a working shale well on university land.

OSU owns mineral rights to 780 acres around their…

Andrew Cuomo, locked in some Albany office, is talking in the mirror to himself about how to build a legacy and what to do about fracking, but music fans might say “just give natural gas a chance.”



As Congress debates immigration reform among other things, Andrew Cuomo, a proud descendent of Italian immigrants, continues the endless debate with himself over the politics of allowing high volume hydrofracturing into his state. The debates over immigration and…

Andrew Cuomo is getting a reputation among New Yorkers for being an indecisive foot-dragging governor – imagine that – for his political maneuvering to avoid a decision on fracking in the state.

Marcellus Drilling News (MDN) subscriber and friend Ken Kamlet, an attorney with one of Binghamton’s premier law firms, Hinman, Howard & Kattell (HHK), recently wrote an article for the HHK legal blog that takes a close look at public polling in New York State on the issue of shale…

The fracking fables surrounding natural gas development, like Aesop’s, seem to hang around a while and every now and then it’s important to go back and remind ourselves of the facts, which absent repeating, will get lost in all the storytelling.

There seems to be no end to fables regarding fracking and natural gas development. They persist in the minds of true believers who want to suppose there is a windmill out there to tilt at. Their psyches require enemies to fight and so they…

I am new to this sight but it seems informative. Thanks in advance for any replies.

I have heard that many land owners are now selling water to drilling/frac companies. I was wondering if anyone on here has done that and what it entails. Any insight is greatly appreciated. Thank you again for your responses.

Much of the following material regarding Josh Fox’s Gasland fairy tale world has appeared previously on an earlier version of NaturalGasNOW.org and on the Energy In Depth – Marcellus website but is updated here as a refresher course for those following Gasland Part II.

Josh Fox is, once again making the rounds to promote Gasland Part II and receiving praise from all the usual suspects; the NIMBY’s who want nothing near themselves, the elitists who move to the area to substitute their…

Natural gas is a frequent target of junk science but it’s wind and other trendy solutions that ought to get attention because they don’t make economic sense. Real solutions are to be found in developing our natural gas resources.

Lately, with more and more data coming on line debunking the Great Bubbling-Up Toxic Fracking Menace and the truth about methane migration (occasional and linked primarily to faulty well casings or surface spills), the scaremongers among the antis have turned…

Josh Fox doesn’t believe in private property it turns out. He, rather, believes land belongs to all the people. Perhaps it’s time for a public drive-by of his father’s property in Milanville; the one he falsely claims he got offered $100,000 to drill.

In 2007, teams of strangers came to our area and began knocking on our doors. Whether male or female, they were called “landmen,” the scouts of the natural gas business. Wanting us to give them leases on the gas beneath our land, they…

This years’s Cabot Picnic, like those that preceded it, was a compelling message to the world that the natural gas industry improves lives and those lucky enough to have it are more than appreciative. Indeed, they want more.

Earlier this week I talked about the Cabot Picnic and its critical role in showing the public the media-created image of Dimock was false. The picnic took place today and my wife and I were there to observe and help man the Energy In Depth booth. The turnout was…

Why does New York have to be so different and our Governor, Andrew Cuomo, so indecisive? Is he really that fearful of radical environmentalists who refuse to accede to any reason? Yes, they’re part of his constituency, but…

Let’s assume that when the music stops Governor Cuomo is holding the hot potato. The Governor is going to make the decision about whether shale development can go forward in New York state. Notwithstanding the pyrotechnic protest on display here, the decision to go…

A new Department of Energy study finds, to no surprise from those who know anything about the process, that hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” does not generate pathways to ground water supplies.

Those individuals who hate fossil fuels and want to stop all shale drilling because of their irrational beliefs are, to be kind, logic-challenged. Witness their claim/belief that fracking fluid (99.5% water and sand, 0.5% chemicals) pumped a mile or more below the surface will magically…

Hurricane Sandy was a powerful demonstration of the importance of natural gas resources to urban America and, more specifically, the potential of natural gas cogeneration to keep the lights on during natural disasters.

Hurricane Sandy was one of the costliest natural disasters to ever strike the United States. For many Americans, it was an almost surreal experience to see the usually bustling streets of New York City made dark and silent by floods and high winds. While the normally…

“Imagine” is one of the world’s great songs, but the inheritors of that tune have misused it in a vain attempt to insert themselves into the fracking debate.

John Lennon’s 1971 song Imagine is rated as the seventh most popular song of all time. Described as “the most influential song of our century” it is a phenomenally good melody combined with a set of vapid lyrics that was well-suited to its times. It was produced with the help of Yoko Ono, Lennon said, although one wonders if his…