Replies to post #606 on The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[OakesCS]

benzene

yeah, intentional or not, there is a great deal of obfuscation in the article: "near" with no numbers or units, "gas-production facility" without saying what kind of facility, "comparable to" again without any quantification, "sites" again without saying what kind of site, e.g. a well being drilled, poducing well, gathering facility, etc.

in my own cynical way, i think this is an old fashioned supply and demand problem. Gas prices are low so gas companies are offering low lease rates. This is the local population's approach to 'counter-offering'.

[OakesCS]

shale gas drilling

more on lack of precision in news reporting (re a 19Feb story in the WSJ regarding congressional investigations of drilling practices in gas shales):

The two congressmen raised particular concerns about the use of diesel fuel, which contains carcinogens. In 2003, three large oil-field-service companies, Schlumberger Ltd, Halliburton Co. and BJ Services Inc., reached a voluntary agreement with the EPA not to use diesel in certain wells.

But on Thursday, Mr. Waxman said that documents provided by BJ Services and Halliburton indicated they had continued to use diesel after the agreement was signed. BJ Chief Financial Officer Jeff Smith said Thursday that the company had "inadvertently used diesel on a couple of jobs" after the agreement but had since fixed the problem.

i'd bet that the cases cited in the 2nd quoted paragraph were NOT gas shale projects. Looks to me as if a dishonest congressman is intentionally confusing cases to mislead technically illiterate news reporters (and hence the technically illiterate public).