Source: Dow Jones News Service, June 26, 2013 Posted on: http://envfpn.advisen.com (FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 6/26/13) Poorly sealed natural-gas wells — not hydraulic fracturing of shale-rock formations — are likely to blame for dissolved gas found in private water wells in Pennsylvania, according to a new study by Duke University. Duke scientists found that […]

Source: http://www.nature.com, June 25, 2013 By: Jeff Tollefson Chemical analysis links methane in drinking wells to shale-gas extraction. As shale-gas operations expand across the United States, industry officials and environmentalists are at loggerheads over whether or not shale-gas extraction can contaminate groundwater. Now researchers have traced low levels of methane and other contaminants to a […]

Source: Greeley Tribune (CO), June 21, 2013 Posted on: http://envfpn.advisen.com From her back porch on Wednesday evening, lifelong Windsor-area resident JoAnn Ochsner stared across a corn field and remembered the flurry of crews that raced to cap a damaged oil well that in February sent flowback fluid soaring into the air. That incident gathered widespread […]

Source: Xinhua News Agency (China), June 24, 2013 Posted on: http://envfpn.advisen.com People living within one kilometer of shale gas wells appear to be at higher risk of having their drinking water contaminated by stray gases, a new U.S. study has found. Shale gas accounts for an increasing fraction of the U.S. natural gas supply, but […]

Source: http://www.lexology.com, June 14, 2013 By: Wiley Rein LLP Applying Nevada law, a federal district court has held that an insurer has no duty to defend or indemnify claims alleging damage from design defects in houses constructed by the insureds due to the policy’s professional services exclusion. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co. v. […]

Source: Greeley Tribune (CO), June 18, 2013 Posted on: http://envfpn.advisen.com PDC Energy on Monday formally agreed to pay $35,000 in response to February’s 30-hour, 84,000-gallon fracking flow back fluid spill north of Windsor. During the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission’s meeting in Grand Junction, PDC offered to go above and beyond an otherwise minor […]

Source: Ventura County Star (CA), June 18, 2013 Posted on: http://envfpn.advisen.com Concerned that proposals to identify and monitor chemicals injected into oil wells may focus too narrowly on hydraulic fracturing, a Senate committee Tuesday will look more broadly into all drilling techniques designed to stimulate oil recovery. Specifically, the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee […]

Read here about strict fracking regulations that have been signed into law by Illinois’ governor.

Read here about a study being done on the effects of shale gas drilling on water quality that will not be complete until 2016.  

Source: http://www.newsobserver.com, June 19, 2013 By: John Murawski A Chapel Hill advocacy group is threatening to sue Duke Energy Progress over alleged contamination of public water from coal ash pits, a strategy designed to prompt North Carolina regulators to take legal action again the power company. The Southern Environmental Law Center said Wednesday it is […]

Read here about lawsuits that have been filed by environmentalists as a result of water pollution from reclaimed mine sites.  

Source: http://www.lexology.com, June 17, 2013 By: Gerard M. Giordano, Cole Schotz Meisel Forman & Leonard PA In EPEC Polymers, Inc. v. NL Industries Inc., Civ. Action No. 12-3842 (D.N.J. May 24, 2013), defendant NL Industries Inc. owned property on one side of the Raritan River, where it produced and discharged waste to the river. Plaintiff […]