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Pennsylvania Fracking Law Opens Up Drilling On College Campuses
PolygamousRanchKid writes with this news from MotherJones: "Last year, when Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett suggested offsetting college tuition fees by leasing parts of state-owned college campuses to natural gas drillers, more than a few Pennsylvanians were left blinking and rubbing their eyes. But it was no idle threat: After quietly moving through the state Senate and House, this week the governor signed into law a bill that opens up 14 of the state's public universities to fracking, oil drilling, and coal mining on campus. Environmentalists and educators are concerned that fracking and other resource exploitation on campus could leave students directly exposed to harms like explosions, water contamination, and air pollution."
We're not opening up the college campuses to resource exploitation. We're expanding our engineering program and our geology program. New fields of study to include Mine Safety Engineer, Gas Well Engineer, Resource Geology, Mining and Mineral Engineering, and more! Internships right on campus! Sorry for the coal dust on the windows.
Or possibly Saved by the Bell.
Who Shot Mr. Burns?
I can imagine how this conversation went.
"So, does anyone have any suggestions how we can fuck over the country's college students some more?"
"I don't know, we're already indebting them for most of their adult lives. How do you top that?"
"Hey, I have an idea, but it's kinda far-fetched..."
Drilling is one thing, but actual coal mining on campus? How would that even work?
If I recall correctly isn't PA the state with the ever burning coal mine fire? I think it was called Centrailia or something. Let's open up college campuses to mining as well. I'm sure putting a mine on the same property as drunk frat boys is a brilliant plan.
seriously, How big of an area is the campus in any city, county ? why the fuck would the mining companies even be interested? this sounds like something a mining lobbyist mentioned as a joke and the politician took seriously.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
You heard it here first, fracking and drilling are the best thing to do on all Pennsylvania campuses. Enroll in a Pennsylvania College today!
Wind and solar supply conventional electrical loads. A high energy density fuel is still going to be needed for long distance travel in cars, trucking, shipping, and aviation. That fuel will almost certainly be a hydrocarbon (fossil or biofuel). If you have another solution please feel free to tell the world. Otherwise stop oversimplifying energy issues as it only makes you look like a dipshit.
Battlestar Galactica has a lot to answer for.
Referring to the "fracturing" of seams beneath the earth sounds much worse than it actually is when it is called "fracking".
The real question we should all be asking is: WHERE THE FRACK ARE YOU GOING TO GET ENERGY TO POWER YOUR NEW DIGITAL ECONOMY FROM?
Does it go on forever?
This isn't the worst thing to happen on Pennsyvalnia college grounds.
State University systems can own thousands of acres of land not actually being used as campus land. A large portion of the University of Texas's income comes from leases operated on UT-owned land. In fact, there is an entire entity solely dedicated to handing this for UT: University Lands. It's unlikely that Pennsylvania is looking to lease Campus Commons areas. More likely they are simply making it possible for unused land owned by the system to bring in funds for the State University System.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
the fuck
usa is so pathetic...
Ok I'll explain this for you. Any land owned by the University system is part of the "campus". They are not talking about strip mining the front lawn, fracking under the dorms, or drilling in the student lounge. The Universities in this state happen to own some pretty large chunks of land which are completely removed from the school's building and dorm rooms. Under previous rules they were not allowed to do anything with natural resources, this law allows them to develop in certain cases. Any development still has to comply with environmental regulations, impact studies must be performed, etc.
tl;dr just another reactionary bullshit slashdot story designed to get the enviro-wacko's pissed off.
This reminds me of the Simpsons episode where they had an oil well at the school...
liberare massarum ex ignorantia, clausa descendit molestie.
The law mandates that 50 percent of all fees and royalties from the mineral leases will be retained by the university where those minerals are mined, 35 percent will be distributed across the state system, and another 15 percent will go towards subsidizing student tuition.
PS "Mother Jones" isn't what you'd call an unbiased source when it comes to this sort of reporting. Other stories from their front page: "Hating on Software Companies", "Should Obama Flat Out Call Romney a Liar?", and "Joe Biden Smiles, Laughs, and Mostly Kicks Ass". It's biased and they make no secret of it. For an example of how this affects reporting, see the following:
The vice president of a company went to the chairman of the board and said, 'We are thinking of starting a new program. It will help us increase profits, but it will also harm the environment.' The chairman of the board answered, 'I don't care at all about harming the environment. I just want to make as much profit as I can. Let's start the new program.' They started the new program. Sure enough, the environment was harmed.
Did the chairman harm the environment intentionally? In a 2003 study, 82 percent of respondents said yes, he did. But now consider this:
The vice president of a company went to the chairman of the board and said, 'We are thinking of starting a new program. It will help us increase profits, and it will also help the environment.' The chairman of the board answered, 'I don't care at all about helping the environment. I just want to make as much profit as I can. Let's start the new program.' They started the new program. Sure enough, the environment was helped.
Did the chairman help the environment intentionally? Only 23 percent of respondents said yes.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Perhaps he can strap a wind generator to his EV for in route recharging? I guess the faster he goes, the more charged he will be.
No wonder the movie "Nothing but trouble" (aka Valkenvania) played in Pennsylvania. I wonder if the governor is related to Judge Valkenheiser.
I doubt this would be happening in the middle of the dorms. More likely it would be on land that the universities aren't currently using.
No, son. "Any land owned by the University system" is not considered part of the "campus".
You are welcome on my lawn.
like using students as cheap labor. or wait cow/methane farm. solar / wind ? why does education cost so much anyway..
I thought they wanted to hire some Drill instructors for drilling students.
I'm trying to imagine what a derrick draped in TP would look like.
I think the answer is "awesome, dude!".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
...unless money and greed is involved! Way to go US politicians.
All this hand-wringing about fracking is a mirage from the looney anti-fossil-fuel greens. There have never been any proven detrimental impacts from fracking when done with modern techniques. Fracking, our golden chance for energy independence, is being attacked as if these dangers were proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, as opposed to lacking a shred of hard evidence behind them.
If the greens succeed in killing this opportunity to end our dependence on foreign oil, I hope they will be proud the next time we go to war to defend our oil lifeline.
n/t
. . . Fox News, the fracking industry, and large dosages of crack.
they will steal it. If it is locked down, they will steal a crowbar to lift it and then steal it.
Let me guess, by some strange coincidence the ground below Harvard and Yale isn't suitable for frackin'.
you wouldn't want JOB KILLING REGULATIONS would you? Alright then, now bend over and enjoy getting fracked, plebs.
He's a Republican, funny the article doesn't mention this, and yet its an election year?
"Corporations are people", the citizens united ruling, means that a similar pattern will occur outside of Penn state. Big corporate money will put puppet candidates into power who will grant the corporations billion dollar tax breaks, who will have more money to market their puppets and so on.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/06/21/250425/tom-corbett-veto-threat-fracking/?mobile=nc
"So why has Corbett adamantly opposed taxing the natural gas industry? One reason could be the massive amount of campaign contributions the industry has given the governor. Pennsylvania has no individual campaign finance limits, which has helped the industry donate more than $1,042,116 to Corbett’s campaign for governor and $361,207 to Corbett while he was the state’s attorney general."
"Corbett has already repaid the industry by lifting a moratorium on new natural gas drilling on public lands, and by requiring his office’s approval before any regulations against natural gas companies can be enforced. Now, he would rather cut $500 million in education funding and eliminate health care coverage for 100,000 low income Pennsylvanian’s than tax the industry. He even suggested that public universities should pay for themselves by allowing natural gas drilling on their campuses. "
The question is, why WOULDN'T a state do this?
It's state land.
And it's not like it's some sort of inviolable sacred ground, is it? And they are CERTAINLY not entitled to any special consideration beyond that of any other citizen when it comes to 'exposure to pollutants, etc.'
No, I don't think they should plant the machinery right outside the door of classrooms, but to be legally able to slant-drill and access the minerals beneath any public property is just good common sense.
-Styopa
umm unless education suddenly changed in the US. the avg freshmen in college is 18 years of age. and this too might have changed but last time i was in america the legal age to be considered an adult was 18. so they are no longer children. also why is no one thinking of the professors and campus staff? the "children" spend 4 years there. professors and staff spend their lives there.
I guess nothing stops the quest for greed
No, son. "Any land owned by the University system" is not considered part of the "campus".
I won't argue what "campus" means but, the bill never mentions "campus". here' the text of the bill:
Senate Bill 367 (P.N. 2349) – This bill establishes the Indigenous Mineral Resource Development Act, allowing the Department of General Services to make and execute contracts or leases for the mining or removal of coal, oil, natural gas, coal bed methane and limestone found in or beneath land owned by the state or state system of higher education.
In other words, the article from Mother Jones was entirely misleading making people think of gas rigs next to dormitories when, in reality, the bill opened up all state lands pending government approval. Typical Mother Jones scare tactics.
has 22 shale gas wells on campus, all drilled horizontally from a single pad on the edge of campus - http://www.uta.edu/ucomm/naturalgas/FrequentlyAskedQuestions.php
There's gas wells all over the city, but it's Texas, so no one bats an eye, quite the opposite, people actively encourage drilling on their land because they like the royalty checks. Here's the regulatory records for one of the wells on campus - http://webapps2.rrc.state.tx.us/EWA/specificLeaseQueryAction.do?tab=init&viewType=prodAndTotalDisp&methodToCall=fromGisViewer&pdqSearchArgs.paramValue=|2=08|3=2011|4=07|5=2012|103=254706|6=G|102=09|8=specificLease|204=district|9=dispDetails|10=0
It shows that the well is currently producing ~40,000,000 cubic feet of gas per month. At a current price of about $3 per 1000 cubic feet, this well is producing about $120,000 worth of gas per month. A typical royalty is 20% of the value of the gas goes to the landowner, and looking at the records, UTA owns about 2/3 of the land in this well's unit, so that works out to $16,000 PER MONTH from this well royalty for the university. Multiply that by 22 and you can easily see why a univerity facing budget shortfalls might like to drill.
Fracking is cracking the ground with water to release gas. That gas leaks into ground water and a lot escapes upwards. It contains various cancerous and toxic agent, like benzine, mercury etc. It's toxic stuff.
So 'common sense' suggests you don't do it near where your future generations best and brightest are likely to be taught. Well not unless you're an old man who received a lot of election money from the fracking industry anyway.
My Kingdom for Mod points.
An entire wank fest could have been averted if your comment was +5.
Well, probably not. But at least the less excitable Slashdotters would have simply gone on to the next one.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
FYI, "fracking" has been verifiably linked to flammable tap water. It's no surprise that this had to be pushed quietly through system, because there's a lot of very good reasons fracking shouldn't be done at all, especially near populated areas.
And just for fun: here's a fun video showing what can happen when you live too close to it.
Fracking will cause groundwater to be contaminated.
Water is, other than air, what humans need most to
live.
Pennsylvania is a state full of idiots.
I suggest opening places like Martha's Vineyard and wealthy communities in PA to drilling and strip mining. They aren't anti development commies are they?
I think the closest thing I have seen close to this is the "Commitee to Nuke the Whales" - a troll operation set-up in one of late Robert Anton Wilson's novels.
-><- no
I agree - the same is true here in Colorado, where land owned by Colorado State (a land-grant university) has been open to drilling for several years already. The university owns lots of land, often many tens of miles away from the main campus, for such things as experimental farms, aircraft hangars and radar sites. Most of them have been drilled using the "horizontal" approach, so no equipment directly on site. I know this because I work on one of the remote sites, and was around when they drilled some 500 feet away from my building. The oil company folks came over and explained that we may hear odd sounds when they did the frakking (I didn't). The university has made quite a bit of money off the wells, which translated to no student fee increases for a couple of years (this year was an exception, though).
Will they offer a TRADES based learning plan on drilling if they put this in?
With teachers with real job skills and not just years of teaching in class room with little to no job experience.
Will they also make it a 2 year or less plan?? 4 years of mostly theory with the full load of fluff and filler classes is overkill.
Three's is simple words
"Follow the Money"
()-()
Environmentalists and educators are concerned that fracking and other resource exploitation on campus could leave students directly exposed to harms like explosions, water contamination, and air pollution."
I really don't understand the current media hype-scare over fracking. It's hardly a blip on the radar when compared to the lifecycle of a typical well.
It takes months to do the testing and science-work before you even break ground. Drilling and casing the actual well (without contaminating ground water in any meaningful way mind you, that's almost entirely FUD. They solved that problem over forty years ago) can take another month or two. Then you've got your wireline logging to do, more sciency-bookwork to interpret it and draw up a proper frac plan. -then- the frackers come in. For a day or three, counting time to rig in and out, connecting/disconnecting all the equipment. They do their job, and then they pack up and leave.
And then the well spends the rest of it's life (years!) sitting there quietly, producing.
So to recap, when faced with the prospect of having an operating drilling rig next door for months (maxmimum footprint and noise and general pollution), a service rig far a month or two (half the footprint of the drilling rig, less noise, pollution primalirly engine exhaust), and then a frac operation for a few days (lowest physical footprint, a godawful amount of noise for -one- day, and diesel exhaust for the same), you're going to bitch and moan and fear-monger... about the frac?
This video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3n7sPYytQY&feature=related) is a very good summery of how a typical oil well gets created, from start to finish. This is not new technology (even fracing, it's been done since the 40's), and while there is an incredible amount of science involved, it's not 'rocket science'. It's well understood and shit rarely goes wrong.
All that being said, would I want one drilled on my university campus while I'm attending? Probably not. But then, with modern horizontal drilling, they can start drilling from a comfortable several miles away, and everyone is happy. And even if it was next door, it's unfortunate but it's been done. There are office buildings in some Canadian cities with gas wells in the basement, and Beverly Hills has the highest number of wells within city limits of any US city. Look out any third-story window and you can see at least three, hidden in plain sight.
This is all media blown-out-of-propertion bullshit, as usual. Got to sell those eyeballs, eh?
And don't even get me started on the "flammable tap-water because of fracking" nonsense. As I said, we've been fracking since the 40's, all over the continent, and it's done at the level of the oil/gas we want to get at, which is -well- below the water table and the aquifers we tap for drinking water. The levels are separated by rock that is Not Frackable at the pressures we're using (up to 15000 psi / 85 MPa if you were curious). If there is any communication between them, it's because something went wrong when the well was drilled (no surface casing, though that's almost impossible, or a shitty cementing job, in which case the frac -could- propagate through that). Either way, it's not a fracing issue, it's a drilling issue. They never seem to mention that, do they? Of course, there are also plenty of examples of natural communiciation. Tar/oil sands, like in Alberta or downtown LA spring to mind. You think those hydrocarbons didn't pass through the ground water to reach the surface? They did. A long-term Contamination, right there.
And that's the real kicker... with that long history of fracking, why haven't we been seeing flammable drinking water before? Oh wait, we have. And it's usually in coal country. Where natural seeps abound, and where the coal mining gigs have been drilling for core samples for years. Just like an oil well, except without the surface casing to protect the groundwater. So, decades of communication between the coal/nat
Notice how the people who support this and benefit directly from it all send their kids to private schools that wouldn't be affected by this? See that big middle finger? Go ahead, keep voting against yourself everyone.
If you read the acutal law, SB 367, it does not authorize natural gas drilling on college campuses. In fact it specifically exempts them, as well as all state nature preserves:
It does, however, permit the state to make a right of way through a state college to reach natural gas wells located some place else, but I guess "Pennsylvania Fracking Law Opens Up Roads on College Campuses" doesn't sound nearly as sentational.
"When done wrong, yes, it can release pollutants. When done correctly and it usually is done correctly, it does not."
No, it's fracking and it's a problem because it includes fracturing the rock which is inevitably not a neat thing.
I don't think going into denial about it fixes anything. He should not be taking donations from the fracking companies to get elected, then giving them permission to frack on college campuses when this is the known problem with fracking.
"or beneath land owned by the state or state system of higher education. "
"land owned by the state system of higher education"
"land owned by the college"
How did you not read this part?
Before you go bash Mother Jones, try to RTFA.
AHAHAHAHAHHA You think this will lower tuition?!
No Mother Jones is accurate, you just had a conservative knee-jerk reaction. The picture education hating conservatives have of a "college campus" is the lecture hall filled building. Students in the geology, biology, geophysics, engineering and meteorology programs rarely spend time in lecture halls after their sophomore years. The spend their time split between the lab and a field station. Using Penn State in happy valley as an example the Southeast Agricultural Research & Extension Center (SEAREC) is home to Penn State’s applied field research program. Penn State's Agricultural & Biological Engineering, Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education, Animal Science, Ecosystem Science and Management, Entomology, Food Science, Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology, Plant Science, Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences take classes, work and study in this expensive facility. This is what is referred to as land owned by the state or state system of higher education. So yes, there will be "gas rigs next to dormitories". It's sad to see the uneducated ill-informed conservatives being bought and sold by some of the greediest people in the world and not realize it.
Colleges take their drinking water from wells on campus? I doubt it. I call environmentalist FUD on this one.
Have gnu, will travel.
Environmentalists and educators are concerned that fracking and other resource exploitation on campus could leave students directly exposed to harms like explosions, water contamination, and air pollution.
Not to mention it permanently degrades public land and the mining companies will never undo the damage they did because it's not cost-effective (for them).
Who here buys into what you just said? The so-called "conservative picture" does have one feature your argument doesn't have. Namely, that's where the people are. As to people who are actually working out in the field, I doubt they'll be exposed to any more risk than they already get from their education itself.
Well? Hum...
Any sane person would realize the goal is not to be eaten first, but fracked last. That's when natural gas will be at its most expensive. So protest like hell, that way, you can rake in Saudi Oil Money when everyone else has fracked their land already. Or you can sell them pure water! Either way, wait, then profit!
Ask Berry College(located in Rome, GA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berry_College ) how their college campus ended up when Florida Rock dug a huge hole on campus property. Though the site was out of site to people on campus, one of the lakes on campus(Victory Lake) almost completely dried up(sink hole) and buildings, some very old(Ford Buildings, paid for by Henry Ford and given continued assistance by the Ford Corporation), started having problems from sink holes, the watertable started to be displaced, and it hurt the college far more than the help Berry College got from Florida Rock.
The rock quarry is now a large lake, which is also extremely deep. Would you fall in(which you should survive the fall), and cannot get out, you will drown and never have your body retrieved. Sadly, this place is well known to be an excellent place(one of a few in the area) to dump a body, or other items you do not want found, or ever retrieved by anyone(including the person that dump the body or item). Yes, Martha Berry would be proud.
https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2011SE/finalprogram/abstract_183994.htm
There are other buildings that have had problems from the bad decision of Berry Colege's administration. These colleges may end up in a similar situation.
you just got trolled and not even by a good troll.
Mod parent up! The trades used in the oil and gas fields often pay very well.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I'm against this. There is entirely too much drilling on campus already. And furthermore, I was not invited.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Coal mining is completely different to seam gas extraction.
Did I miss a memo?
When did it change from "different from" to "different to"?
Are you skimming on your reading of SB 367 a little bit?
This law absolutely allows drilling and fracking on campuses next to (or under) dorms.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I take it you don't know who is currently running Pennsylvania, do you.
Here's a hint:
It's run by Republicans who had their campaigns almost completely financed by the drilling and mining industries.
Think about that, and then think what will happen when those same companies come knocking and asking permission to drill.