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The Environmental Defense Fund’s chief counsel has written a blog post detailing the non-profit’s support for hydraulic fracturing of natural gas.

The EDF is well known for pouring money into global warming, clean air and oil spill cleanup fights.

In the case of fracking, Brownstein says, it mainly comes down to eliminating coal.

“We fear that those who oppose all natural gas production everywhere are, in effect, making it harder for the U.S. economy to wean itself from dirty coal,” he said.

The fund’s Mark Brownstein lays out three reasons to back natgas:

Fracking is already a common, widespread practice

On balance, they’d rather see natural gas-powered electricity plans than coal-powered ones. “We are glad to see these coal plants go,” he says. Plus, natural gas is the feedstock for chemicals, pharmaceuticals and fertilizer, and for direct heating and cooling

Any potential hazards can be regulated. “Effective oversight and enforcement with the necessary financial and human resources [can] make [regulations] real.

He closes thusly:

Natural gas production can never be made entirely safe; like any intensive industrial activity, it involves risks. But having studied the issue closely, we are convinced that if tough rules, oversight and penalties for noncompliance are put in place, these risks become manageable.

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Vanguard Environmental has won approval to drill an underground oilfield-waste well near houses and businesses in north Houma after a judge ruled parish officials had unconstitutionally applied law to prevent it from doing so.

The waste fluid, which would be injected under high pressures into sand formations about 4,000 feet underground, consists mostly of concentrated saltwater left over from oil production. The materials are classified as nonhazardous, but they could potentially contain volatile organic compounds, such as toluene and benzene, known to cause cancer in humans. They could also contain toxic metals such as arsenic, lead and barium, or radioactive materials.

The well would also accept water from pipeline testing and cleaning, as well as rainwater collected from other sites or spills. It would not handle drilling fluids or muds, which are thicker, state officials have said.

Parish law prevents companies from drilling such wells within a mile of neighborhoods, schools and businesses, but state law allows them outside 500 feet. Vanguard received a permit from the Department of Natural Resources for a site closer than a mile to several homes, St. Gregory Elementary and Legion Park Middle schools, a children’s baseball field and an Army National Guard Armory.

Judge George Larke Jr. ruled that, in this particular case, the state has exclusive regulatory authority over oil and gas industry sites, so the parish’s law couldn’t override the state permit.

Larke was careful to point out the parish law itself was not unconstitutional — other hazardous waste wells outside the oil and gas industry could likely still be restricted by the parish’s law, for example.

Vanguard’s lawyers declined to comment.

Terrebonne Parish President Michel Claudet said he was “obviously disappointed in the ruling,” and added the parish plans to appeal the ruling immediately. “If this ruling reduced the distance to 500 feet, we could potentially have these wells throughout our parish,” Claudet said. “With the way people are concerned about their health, welfare and safety, I think the citizens of this parish are as upset as we are.”

Claudet said he was especially disappointed to learn oil and gas wells were treated differently than other wells.

“I think that gives further indication into how much influence the oil and gas industry has in this state,” he said.

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Heckmann Corporation (HEK), a long-time favorite of CNBC’s ‘Mad Money’ host Jim Cramer, is an environmental services company. The Company operates through two business segments. Heckmann Water Resources (HWR) is dedicated to the movement, treatment and disposal of water generated by energy companies involved in the discovery and production of oil and natural gas. Heckmann Environmental Service (HES) is a one-stop-shop for collection and recycling services for oily waste products, including used motor oil, oily wastewater, spent antifreeze, used oil filters and parts washers. Heckmann Corporation is building a national footprint across its environmental service offerings. The Company has more than 1,500 employees and operates in 52 locations in the U.S.

For the first quarter of 2012 that ended March 31, HWR’s revenues tripled to $55.0 million, compared with $18.2 million for the same period in the previous year. Adjusted EBITDA2 more than doubled to $10.2 million, compared with $4.1 million for both the first quarter of 2011 and the fourth quarter of 2011. On a pro-forma basis, which included the effect of Heckmann Environmental Services (HES – formerly Thermo Fluids Inc., or TFI), revenues were $82.4 million and adjusted EBITDA was $16.2 million.

The acquisition of TFI Holdings and Thermo Fluids was completed early April and extended Heckmann’s single-source environmental solutions offering for the oil and gas industries beyond water services solutions. Acquiring the largest seller of pre-processed fuel oil from recovered used motor oil [UMO] in the Western United States represented the next phase of Heckmann’s growth.

Heckmann can now provide more comprehensive service offerings among the environmental services spectrum, as HES will augment the company’s proven capabilities in water and wastewater services through diversification of operations, revenue stream, reach, and of course customer base. HES should also accelerate the company’s top-line growth and provide increased free operating cash flow.

On the assumption of three quarters of operations, Heckmann had communicated the expectation that HES will generate revenues between $105 and $115 million for the nine-month period beginning in April 2012. In connection with the acquisition, Heckmann paid $227.5 million in cash from a senior notes offering and $17.5 million in restricted shares of Heckmann common stock.

The company had a strong start to the year, reporting its sixth consecutive quarter of record revenues, as adjusted EBITDA more than doubled Y-o-Y and compared to the last quarter of 2011, and exceeded quarterly guidance.

The board made a point to stress that all of the expansion in the water business was a result of new contracts or customers, primarily in the liquid-rich shale areas, and that the two business segments are currently well positioned for future growth with good momentum. As both segments are seasonally slowest in the first quarter, the company expects second quarter 2012 revenues to increase over first quarter pro-forma results by more than 15%.

It seems Heckmann is on target to achieve the financial and strategic goals set out for 20120. Their water solutions segment has grown over the past 12 months from operations exclusively in the Haynesville Shale area to now include operations in seven additional oil, liquid-rich and natural gas shale areas in seven states and continues to grow significantly.

When considering an investment in Heckmann, it’s important to remember that their water solutions business is less than three years old and that the considerable management and asset intensive infrastructure necessary to produce over $250 million of water-related revenues in 2012 has a significant start-up component to it. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

The results in the first quarter were driven by the securing of long-term service contracts with large customers, servicing higher volumes of produced water in the gas basins, and repositioning some assets from dry gas basins to oil and liquid-rich basins. The company also hired 175 truck drivers and several dozen water transfer and well testing technicians in the first quarter. Heckmann expects organic growth to continue, margins to expand, and to hire more than 100 new drivers in the second quarter to meet demand in their expanding water solutions segment.

On March 30, 2012, Heckmann completed a public offering of 18.2 million shares of common stock at a price of $4.40 per share for net proceeds of $74.4 million, and on April 10th the company also completed a debt offering of $250.0 million in senior unsecured notes next to entering into a new senior secured revolving credit facility of $150.0 million with an accordion feature. The proceeds from these transactions were used to fund the cash portion of the TFI acquisition and to pay off Heckmann’s existing term loan and revolving credit facility. The company has not utilized its new senior credit facility at this time according to fillings.

For the second quarter of 2012, Heckmann currently expects total revenues of approximately $100.0 million. As a result of the acquisition of TFI, Heckmann now expects to achieve pro-forma total revenues of between $400.0 million and $420.0 million for full year 2012, and pro-forma adjusted EBITDA in the region of $95-$105 million.

As of March 31, 2012, Heckmann Corporation’s total assets were $629.3 million, and equity totaled $422.7 million. Heckmann currently has a Forward P/E of 16.3 and a market cap of $444.5 million. This translates into a current P/B of 1.1, with a P/S of 1.8.

The last few years have been difficult for the largest of companies, let alone for start-ups like Heckmann. But despite plenty of headwinds, this company remains full of potential and continues to exhibit plenty of growth. Your entry point is key with every investment you make. Given Heckmann’s current valuation, Jim Cramer would probably ask you: “Where’s the love people?” And he’s certainly not alone.

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Tugging on rubber gloves, a laboratory worker kneels before a gushing water spigot behind Kim Grosso’s house and positions an empty bottle under the clear, cold stream. The process is repeated dozens of times as bottles are filled, marked and packed into coolers.

After extensive testing, Grosso and dozens of her neighbors will know this week what may be lurking in their well water as federal regulators investigate claims of contamination

in the midst of one of the nation’s most productive natural gas fields.

More than three years into the gas-drilling boom that’s produced thousands of new wells, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state of Pennsylvania are tussling over regulation of the Marcellus Shale, the vast underground rock formation that holds trillions of cubic feet of gas.

The state says EPA is meddling. EPA says it is doing its job.

Grosso, who lives near a pair of gas wells drilled in 2008, told federal officials her water became discolored a few months ago, with an intermittent foul odor and taste. Her dog and cats refused to drink it. While there’s no indication the problems are related to drilling, she hopes the testing will provide answers.

“If there is something wrong with the water, who is responsible?” she asked. “Who’s going to fix it, and what does it do to the value of the property?”

Federal regulators are ramping up their oversight of the Marcellus with dual investigations in the northeastern and southwestern corners of Pennsylvania. The EPA is also sampling water around Pennsylvania for its national study of the potential environmental and public health impacts of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” the technique that blasts sand, water and chemicals deep underground to stimulate oil and gas production in shale formations. Fracking allows drillers to reach previously inaccessible gas reserves, but it produces huge volumes of polluted wastewater, and environmentalists say it can taint groundwater. Energy companies deny it.

The heightened federal scrutiny rankles the industry and politicians in the state capital, where the administration of pro-drilling Gov. Tom Corbett insists that Pennsylvania regulators are best-suited to oversee the gas industry. The complaints echo those in Texas and in Wyoming, where the EPA’s preliminary finding that fracking chemicals contaminated water supplies is disputed by state officials and energy executives.

In New York, which also has vast amounts of gas in shale formations beneath much of the Southern Tier, drilling is on hold while state regulators work on controversial new regulations for energy producers attempting to tap into those deposits.

Caught in the middle of the state-federal regulatory dispute are residents who don’t know if their water is safe to drink.

The EPA is charged by law with protecting and ensuring the safety of the nation’s drinking water, but it has largely allowed the states to take the lead on rules and enforcement as energy companies drilled and fracked tens of thousands of new wells in recent years. The American Petroleum Institute urged the Obama administration last week to rein in the 10 agencies it says are either reviewing, studying or proposing regulation of fracking.

The EPA says public health is its key focus and insists it is guided by sound science and the law. “We have been clear that if we see an immediate threat to public health, we will not hesitate to take steps under the law to protect Americans whose health may be at risk,” said Terri White, an EPA spokeswoman in Philadelphia.

Dimock, a village about 20 miles south of the New York state line, holds the distinction of being Pennsylvania’s top gas-producing town, yielding enough gas in six months to supply 400,000 U.S. homes for a year. Some residents contend their water wells were irreversibly contaminated after Houston- based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. drilled faulty gas wells that leaked methane into the aquifer — and spilled thousands of gallons of fracking fluids that residents suspect leached into the groundwater.

Cabot first acknowledged, then denied responsibility for the methane it now contends is naturally occurring. It also asserts that years of sampling data show the water is safe to drink.

The EPA looked at the same test results and arrived at a different conclusion.

The well water samples “led us to conclude that there were health concerns that required action,” White said.

Cabot says its drilling operations had nothing to do with any chemicals that have turned up in the water. It points to a Duke University study last year that found no evidence of contamination from fracking.

Meanwhile, twice a day, six days a week, Dimock resident Ray Kemble drives about eight miles to a hydrant in Montrose, fills a 550-gallon tank strapped to the back of a donated truck and delivers water to as many as five homes, including his own. Anti-drilling groups are footing the bill, estimated at $500 per week.

Kemble said his well water turned brown and became unusable in 2008, shortly after the gas well across the street was drilled and fracked.

At his home, he filled a large plastic container dubbed a water buffalo from the tank on the truck.

“Never had a problem before until Cabot came in,” Kemble said.

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President Obama’s pro­posed FY 2013 Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency bud­get has a reduc­tion of 1.2 per­cent, or $105 mil­lion dol­lars, from the pre­vi­ous year. It’s the third year in a row the agency has had to endure cuts. The pro­posed reduc­tion comes at a time when the EPA has come under fire from Repub­li­can law­mak­ers, and some pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates, who say the agency has engaged in over-regulatory zeal.

But some of those same pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates have faced ques­tions about the dan­gers of frack­ing on the cam­paign trail. And the bud­get announced today includes research funds ded­i­cated to the impact of hydraulic frac­tur­ing. The pro­posed $14 mil­lion dol­lars will sup­port research in con­junc­tion with the U.S. Geo­log­i­cal Sur­vey and the Depart­ment of Energy that will “begin to assess poten­tial impacts of hydraulic frac­tur­ing on air qual­ity, water qual­ity, and ecosystems.”

The EPA’s total research bud­get of $576 mil­lion includes $81 mil­lion for the agency’s STAR grants, which will sup­port research on frack­ing, poten­tial endocrine dis­rup­tors, and green infra­struc­ture. At the end of this year, the EPA expects to release pre­lim­i­nary results of their cur­rent study on the impact of frack­ing to drink­ing water sup­plies. The study includes areas of Mar­cel­lus Shale drilling in Pennsylvania.

EPA Admin­is­tra­tor Lisa Jack­son said dif­fi­cult choices had to be made with this budget.

“This bud­get is focused on ful­fill­ing EPA’s core mis­sion to pro­tect health and the envi­ron­ment for mil­lions of Amer­i­can fam­i­lies,” said Jack­son. It demon­strates fis­cal respon­si­bil­ity, while still sup­port­ing clean air, healthy waters and inno­v­a­tive safe­guards that are essen­tial to an Amer­ica built to last.”

The EPA bud­get also includes an increase of $11 mil­lion over FY 2012 for a total of $68 mil­lion dol­lars to “reduce chem­i­cal risks, increase the pace of chem­i­cal haz­ard assess­ments, and pro­vide the pub­lic with greater access to toxic chem­i­cal information.”

Jack­son also told reporters on a con­fer­ence call this after­noon that the pro­posed bud­get includes a 5.8 per­cent increase in com­pli­ance and enforcement.

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Fracking may not seem like the sexiest topic (the term refers to a method used to extract oil and natural gas), but one husband-and-wife filmmaker team is hoping to give it some big-screen appeal through a new documentary.

Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer, the Irish pair behind the 2008 documentary “Not Evil Just Wrong,” which challenged Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” is in the beginning stages of a new film, titled “Frack Nation.” They also produced “Mine Your Own Business,” which examined the “dark side of environmentalism,” according to its website.

McAleer told POLITICO that he was motivated by what he saw as the one-sided approach taken by the media, “outsiders” and “urban elites” on the controversial process of injecting chemicals into rocks in hopes of extracting oil and gas.

“We’ve got grown men crying because they’re going to lose their farm,” said McAleer of his documentary work thus far on “Frack Nation.” “There hasn’t been a debate. Environmentalists have used emotion and scare tactics — as is their right — an the story has been all one-sided.

McAleer can be found this week at the Conservative Political Action Conference trying to drum up more awareness for his project.

In “Frack Nation,” McAleer interviews one farmer who says, “If the gas industry is not allowed in, I will have to divide my land and sell it for development. My son wants to farm, but he had to get a job in the city. I won’t be able to keep it for him.”

“The environmental movement has had a very easy ride for the last 30 years,” said McAleer. “The media hasn’t asked difficult questions.”

Perhaps most interesting about McElhinney and McAleer’s efforts to complete “Frack Nation” is their method: Kickstarter. The filmmakers are using the fundraising website to raise $150,000 to cover their costs. (They’re currently at $36,000). McAleer says that his film is one of the few conservative projects on a website that he views as predominantly liberal.

“All the movies on Kickstarter are pro-environment, anti-business, anti-American, I suppose, said McAleer. “And that’s why it’s been one of the more successful projects on Kickstarter so far. It’s been constantly on the most successful front page of Kickstarter because the money has come in at such a rate because people are just so glad to see something different there.”

McAleer sees “Frack Nation” as a rebuttal to Fox’s “Gasland,” an Academy Award-nominated film that focuses, in part, on fracking. McAleer once confronted Fox to challenge many of the film’s claims.

In his recent interview with HuffPost, McAleer singled out one particular claim made in the Academy Award-nominated “Gasland” documentary as representative of critics’ “scaremongering.” In one segment, Fox shows that after controversial fracking procedures were enacted in Colorado, residents found their tap water was so polluted with methane, it could be set on fire.

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The oil-and-gas industry is attacking a leaked draft of long-waited government rules that would require companies to disclose the chemicals they use in hydraulic fracturing on federal lands.

The Interior Department‘s Bureau of Land Management has drafted a rule that would require companies to reveal the trade names and purposes of fracking fluid additives and to name the specific chemicals involved and the volumes they plan to use. The rule also contains a trade-secret exemption if companies can show that state or federal laws and regulations protect the information from public disclosure.

Environmental advocates have raised concerns that harmful chemicals including known carcinogens go into fluids used in fracking, in which water, sand and chemicals are injected underground to break up rock that holds oil and gas. Environmentalists and industry representatives disagree on whether the fluids can contaminate water supplies.

Some environmentalists called the BLM draft rule a good start but said they hoped the trade secrets exemption won’t be applied too liberally. Industry complained that the rule duplicated what states already do.

The draft rules, obtained by Hearst Newspapers and confirmed by the Interior Department, must undergo public comment once they’re proposed, and their provisions could change before becoming final.

The rules would come as part of what President Barack Obama has said is the need to develop domestic energy resources “without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk.”

Also under the draft rules, operators would have to disclose where they get their fracking water from and how they would dispose of the wastewater that resurfaces.

The rules would create a “redundant layer of requirements” because states have laws and rules that already apply to companies operating on federal lands within their boundaries, said Kathleen Sgamma with the Western Energy Alliance, a Denver-based industry group. She questioned why the department was writing the rules before the Environmental Protection Agency completes a study of how fracking affects water.

Adam Fetcher, an Interior spokesman, defended the impetus for the rules. “It is essential that the public have full confidence that the right safety and environmental protections are in place,” he said in a statement.

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A handful of low magnitude earthquakes recorded in Ohio was enough to shut down five wastewater injection wells used to dispose of brine and other byproducts of the natural gas drilling process.

One — a 4.0 earthquake outside of Youngstown, Ohio, on New Year’s Eve — was felt as far north as Toronto. Some experts link the deep injection to the quakes, but others are not ready to put the full responsibility on activity related to increased gas drilling.

However, the Ohio earthquakes are not an oddity. Injection wells also have been suspected in earthquakes in Arkansas, Colorado and Oklahoma.

So with more than 3,000 natural gas wells and more than 200 injection wells drilled in northwest Louisiana since the onset of the Haynesville Shale, why hasn’t the earth in northwest Louisiana been shaking?

The answer is a matter of simple geology. Under feet here is soft rock, instead of harder formations in the Northern states. Louisiana’s sands give the ground flexibility that would move as underground compression or tension builds up.

“It would not build up to a point to where it snaps. It would be a gradual movement, a slow uneventful movement,” said Commissioner Jim Welsh, a geologist and head of the state’s conservation office.

He added: “We’ve had oil and gas produced in the state since 1901, and tons have been disposed underground. I’m not aware of any situation in any of the eight Haynesville Shale parishes where anything like this is evidenced.”

Frantic about fracking

Those who oppose the natural gas drilling boom — more specifically, the hydraulic fracturing process used to force it to the surface — are quick to blame the earthquakes on that, too. Many comingle the separate steps used in the production process, often lumping the extraction wells and injection wells all together as “fracking.”

Activists opposed to increased oil and gas drilling activity across Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and West Virginia — where the Utica and Marcellus Shale formations are believed to hold vast quantities of gas — see trouble with the Ohio injection well. It took wastewater from fracking and other forms of drilling.

Original Article