Environment Articles

Seven families in Bradford County have been asked to evacuate following a large spill during fracking operations in the Marcellus Shale at a Chesapeake Energy well west of Towanda, Pa. Earlier reports that there was a blow-out were inaccurate, according to company officials.

A local Emergency Management official said he didn't believe the families had gone anywhere.

Pennsylvania environmental regulators say they spend as little as 35 minutes reviewing each of the thousands of applications for natural gas well permits they get each year from drillers intent on tapping the state's lucrative and vast Marcellus Shale reserves.

And the regulators say they do not give any additional scrutiny to requests to drill near high-quality streams and rivers even though the waterways are protected by state and federal law.

The New York Times has published Ian Urbina’s third article in a series about the dangers of hydraulic fracturing. This installment (available online now) lays out the undue influence that industry and some lawmakers have had on the Environmental Protection Agency and its ability to conduct the necessary levels of research, monitoring and enforcement concerning the threats to our water and health as a result of fracking that the public deserves.