fracking – Page 4 – Jay's Real Estate Blog

Western Md. Realtors support fracking moratorium bills

Posted: Mar 10, 2015 2:58 PM EDT Updated: Mar 10, 2015 2:58 PM EDT

OAKLAND, Md. (AP) – Real-estate brokers in far western Maryland are supporting a proposal in the Maryland General Assembly for an eight-year moratorium on hydraulic fracturing for natural gas pending further study.

The Garrett County Board of Realtors expressed concern Tuesday about the possible impact of fracking on public health. They say fears of health problems from well-water contamination can reduce home values by at least 20 percent.

Garrett County contains most of Maryland’s share of the gas-rich Marcellus shale.

More here.

Proposed Md. fracking regulations are too restrictive

As president of the Garrett County Farm Bureau and the Energy and Property Rights Coalition, I would like to express our concerns about Maryland’s proposed hydraulic fracturing regulations and ask that they be placed on hold for further consideration.

Fracking, and the workers it draws, change a region's cultural landscape

People muster data, facts and studies to support their positions about using hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to extract previously inaccessible oil and gas deposits. The number of scientists standing on one side of the debate over whether it’s harmful to the environment rarely convinces anyone on the other side to switch camps. It appears to be a stalemate.

Bill would mandate 8-year moratorium on fracking

ANNAPOLIS — Environmentally stringent and costly drilling regulations are not enough to protect the public’s health from hydraulic fracturing’s pollutants, according to a coalition of legislators, environmental groups and health professionals who rallied Thursday in support of a moratorium bill.

Del. David Fraser-Hidalgo, D-Montgomery, is sponsoring the Protect Our Health and Communities Bill that would delay hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in Western Maryland for the next eight years in order to provide more time to investigate health and environmental ramifications.

At the end of his term, former Gov. Martin O’Malley established costly permit regulations to drill for natural gas in Maryland that reflected a December analysis by the state’s environment and natural resources departments, said David Venko, chair of a commission charged with studying safe drilling in the state.

Fracking opponents propose 8-year moratorium

…..Marcellus Shale is found underneath all of Garrett County and parts of Allegany County. A Towson University study finds that tapping into it could infuse billions into the local economy, providing farmers the opportunity to negotiate mineral rights to their property.

“That money stays in the counties, stays with the local people, enables farmers to buy new tractors, paint their barns, maintain the farm, keep the farm,” said Delegate Wendell Beitzel, R-Garrett County.

But interest in drilling is waning because state officials have been reluctant to give the green light. Health risks and environmental horror stories fueled the delay. Examples include stories of fracking causing flammable water and mini-earthquakes.

Groups call for legislative fracking ban

CUMBERLAND — A coalition of 79 organizations, including several local organizations, is calling for legislative action to ban hydraulic fracturing in Maryland.

“Based on what we know now, we believe that fracking endangers public health and is the wrong approach to building a robust Maryland economy and a clean energy future. We urge Maryland’s legislature to pass an extended moratorium in 2015,” the statement, released Jan.17, reads. The document was released by the Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility and Food & Water Watch.

At least one bill to ban the practice has been introduced in the Maryland General Assembly.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is the method that would be used to free the gas and allow it to be brought to the surface. In order to get the gas trapped in the shale to the surface, chemicals, water and sand are pumped underground to break apart rock formations and free the gas.

Coalition members say the state isn’t up to regulating fracking.

Garrett benefits from vacationers

A recent article by reporter Tim Wheeler about the issue of natural gas development in Garrett County contains a statement from a local Chamber of Commerce board member and farmer who has been a fairly vocal advocate for natural gas development (“Fracking debate intensifies in Western Maryland,” Jan. 17). His statement deserves a response.

Billy Bishoff is quoted in the article as saying “… as more land goes into vacation homes, it’s becoming harder to afford leasing land to raise crops.”

The number of new second home subdivisions in Garrett County in the past five years has been few to none. Almost all second home development in Garrett County over the past 30 years has occurred in and around Deep Creek Lake. Most of that new development occurred on non-farmed lands. The reality is that there is currently no market competition between farmland and developable second home land in Garrett County.

Fracking splits Garrett County

With natural gas drilling on the horizon in Western Maryland, dairy farmer Billy Bishoff welcomes the chance to supplement his income by collecting lease or royalty payments on the natural gas that lies beneath his family’s 330 acres a few miles northwest of Deep Creek Lake. The gas, locked far beneath the surface, is a “tremendous resource,” he said, that could bring jobs and prosperity to Garrett County, which many residents now leave to find work.

Not far away, Elliott Perfetti worries that drilling for gas could foul the region’s air and water, crippling the tourism and outdoor recreation industries, which have become linchpins of the local economy. “I think it could quickly erode the reasons that people come to Garrett County,” said Perfetti, operations manager at Blue Moon Rising, an eco-friendly resort overlooking the lake.

Bishoff and Perfetti symbolize a broader debate in this mountainous county over the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing — or “fracking” as the drilling technique is commonly known. Now that Maryland has proposed sweeping new rules for oil and gas exploration and production, residents are debating how — or whether — fracking can be done safely.

Fracking in W. Maryland is not a done deal

I am sending this letter out as a mother, as a small farmer, as a Garrett County property owner and tax payer, and as a member of a community that I care deeply about.

After attending the final meeting of the Governor’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission, I left with the awful feeling that the citizens of Garrett County may end up as guinea pigs trying out the proposed “best management practices” for fracking in Maryland. We are seen as the “baseline” in a health study on a host of fracking’s known adverse effects on humans. We could perhaps have the noble opportunity of being part of a “symptom cluster.” We were warned that we should be prepared that “bad things are going to happen.”

Some proposed ‘fracking’ rules in Maryland go too far

MARYLAND GOV. Martin O’Malley (D) plans to lift a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” next month, regulating rather than prohibiting a controversial drilling process that energy companies have used to retrieve massive quantities of natural gas from shale rock formations. But Western Maryland landowners looking for drilling royalties and local laborers looking for jobs should check their excitement. The rules that the outgoing governor plans to impose on Maryland fracking would be so tough that they would make it impossible for drilling to begin in the next two years and would diminish the likelihood that operations will happen in earnest after that.

Larry Hogan, the incoming Republican governor, has promised to review “every single one” of Mr. O’Malley’s regulations. That’s warranted — but his review should be based on the evidence. He must take care not to go too far in the other direction, scrapping many good proposed rules because some might be too strict.

Category: fracking