Below is a link to the NYTimes series on gas drilling in Central NY with excellent interactive slideshows that explain the procedure and issues... takes 5 minutes! Definitely worth the INVESTMENT in understanding this hot topic.
Part 3 of the series, ("Drilling Down"), focuses on the Gas industry's efforts to undermine studies of the "hydrofracking", "waste water" treatment, and environmental laws in neighboring PENNSYLVANNIA.
Due to its political $influence$, the Gas industry does not need to comply with our most basic anti-pollution laws that regulate most other heavy industries and were written to protect air and drinking water from radioactive and hazardous chemicals. For example, Coal mine operators that want to inject toxic wastewater into the ground must get permission from the federal authorities. But when natural gas companies want to inject chemical-laced water and sand into the ground during hydrofracking, they do not have to follow the same rules.
WASTE WATER TREATMENT Pennsylvania officials have acknowledged that sewage treatment plants are not able to treat drilling waste fully before it is discharged into rivers, sometimes just a few miles upstream from drinking water intake plants. Pennsylvania, has staunchly resisted calls to stop issuing permits to treatment plants handling drilling waste.
Drillers throughout the country are watching Pennsylvania to see whether the EPA/federal agency will overrule the state’s decisions on how to dispose of drilling waste. The central question on this issue: Should drillers in Pennsylvania be allowed to dump “mystery liquids” into public waterways? Under federal law, certain basic rules govern sewage treatment plants. At their core, these rules say two things: operators have to know what is in the waste they receive, and they have to treat this waste to make it safe before discharging it into waterways. We need to watch developments in PA to see our future... http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/us/04gas.html?ref=drillingdown&pagewanted=all
