Protect

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has told key state legislators that no additional requirements are needed to protect the air quality from horizontal oil and gas drilling.

The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) plans to hold an invitation-only meeting on Thursday to discuss a request by two energy companies to access their mineral rights under the Loyalsock State Forest.

Montana Democratic Sens. Jon Tester and Max Baucus reintroduced the North Fork Watershed Protection Act last week to protect part of the state’s remote northwest from new oil and gas development and mining. The bill would help fulfill a 2010 trans-border agreement between former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and former British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on Friday announced an expansion of best management practices (BMP) for the fluids minerals industry to protect wildlife near oil, natural gas and geothermal facilities on federal land.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on Friday announced an expansion of best management practices (BMP) for the fluids minerals industry to protect wildlife near oil, natural gas and geothermal facilities on federal land.

Public opinion of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) among voters in New York State has shifted in favor of the practice, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday.

States and producers Monday called on the Obama administration to either withdraw or suspend a proposed rule that would require companies to publicly disclose chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations on federal and Indian lands. Environmental and conservation groups lobbied for the federal government to tighten the rule.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is proposing to protect six species of aquatic invertebrates native to West Texas as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Such an ESA listing could have implications for the West Texas oil patch, analysts warned.

All but two of Encana Corp.’s 35 shut-in natural gas wells were back in service Tuesday in the Piceance Basin as the danger from the Pine Ridge fire along the Western Slope in Colorado continued to subside. The two remaining shut-in wells are “low-producing” and located in the north end of the Piceance, an Encana spokesperson told NGI.