Please post it in general discussion also.
My sympathies to all the residents of Mayflower. What's happening to them is well on the way to being repeated across the country.
Here's what's going on in my state, PA.
In a 2 year study funded in part by the well-respected Heinz Endowments, well inspection data, violations, enforcement actions and penalties were examined in 6 states: Colorado, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Texas, and PENNSYLVANIA. The new analysis found that only a FRACTION of active wells in any of the six states are actually inspected by state regulators to ensure that they comply with state rules and regulations. IN PENNSYLVANIA, which has seen an unprecedented boom in natural gas drilling over the last decade, ONLY NINE (9) PERCENT of active wells -- or only about 8,000 of the state's roughly 90,000 active wells -- WERE INSPECTED.
"The Earthworks analysis also argued that while penalties have been increasing in many states, the sums pale in comparison with profit being reaped by drilling companies. The total amount of fines collected from 2009 to 2011 ranged from a high of $4 million (collected in Pennsylvania in 2010) to a low of $14,000 (collected the same year in New Mexico), according to the analysis. By comparison, the market value of a single gas well in Pennsylvania, the report found, was estimated to be about $2.9 million, suggesting that companies are able to simply absorb penalties as a cost of doing business, rather than alter behavior."
"In preparing to do this research, we did an initial round of discussions with former regulators and ex-industry inspectors," Baizel said. "They pretty much cut to the chase and said money matters. They told us you'll only get the industry's attention if you hurt their pocketbook, and that anything less is really just the cost of doing business to them."
"'You have to have economic consequences in enforcement,' Baizel added.'That was the bottom line'."
I did the math on the profitability for Big Energy on its environmental & public health rape in my state.
PA has (roughly) 90,000 active wells. Market value of a single gas well in PA is estimated at $2.9 million (I'll trust these numbers from a Heinz Endowments funded study). According to my calculator, that comes to $261 BILLION dollars of income. And Pennsylvania collected all of $4 million in fines in 2010, from inspecting 9% of active wells. Again, if I worked my calculator correctly, that means the Frackers were fined at a rate of .0000153 percent. Even if those wells produced for 100 years (as opposed to what, 20 years average?) the total fines would not add up to even one percent. Wow, bet the frackers are really hurting from that level of enforcement - not! Pennsylvania is indeed Fracking Heaven.
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