Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) organized several upcoming statewide protests and commented against Alta Mesa Services’ (AMS) plans to drill the Smoke Ranch natural gas well on private land in Birding Island, Payette County.  In response to nationwide WIRT publicity of this gas extraction scheme, the Idaho Department of Lands (IDL), the administrative arm of the Idaho Land Board and Oil and Gas Conservation Commission authorized to both lease lands and consider and permit such drilling on them (conflicting roles?), released a Fact Sheet for Media with information that counters WIRT assertions and displays alarming duplicity.

No Fracking?

Even though IDL states that “oil and gas resources in Idaho generally do not have the [fracking?] issues with extraction that have been reported over the last few years in other states,” they likely will experience these problems, considering the mercenary objectives of oil and gas companies and the state’s conflict of public interest as the major holder of subsurface mineral rights in the target region.  State rules “include the requirement that an operator must disclose all materials used for well treatments and fracking [if they are not proprietary brews], and to inform the state of where it will dispose of fracking fluid.  Disposal could include the recycle and reuse of the fluid for the fracking process.”  If Idaho resources do not require fracking, why has the state established rules about it?

“Small Frac Jobs”?

“The IDL has received no applications to date for hydraulic fracturing.  However, approximately half of the currently completed [eleven] wells in Idaho will need a SMALL FRAC JOB to clear the drilling mud from the POROUS reservoir rocks.  This frac job is estimated to be only about three percent of the size of frac jobs performed to extract oil or gas from shale, as is currently being done in North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and other places outside Idaho.  This means they would only be using thousands of gallons of water and not millions…”  This IDL statement represents written proof that Idaho is about to be fracked in a similar although smaller way as the places most poisoned by this risky extraction method. Continue reading →

The 1500+ members of Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) oppose Idaho Department of Lands (IDL) permitting of the Alta Mesa Resources (AMS) application to drill well number 1-21 of the Smoke Ranch lease on Birding Island in Payette County, Idaho.  We are concerned that AMS drilling through subsurface shale would require utilization of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in close proximity to the Payette River, Big Willow Creek, and their confluence and surrounding floodplains and wetlands.  Even without fracking, the majority of drinking water contamination problems across the United States have arisen from natural gas and oil drilling and improper well casing construction: Approximately half of all oil and gas well casings fail within twenty years.  Surface water contamination can carelessly occur from the fluids that result as a byproduct of this kind of drilling: the deeper the well, the more radioactive the returning material.

Furthermore, if the Smoke Ranch 1-21 well proves productive during this first foray into the deeper Willow gas field, Alta Mesa Services, Snake River Oil and Gas (SROG), and their peers, backed only by questionable financial resources, could drill in the state lands (leased by IDL at ridiculously low rates) along the Payette River.  With only expensive, exploratory progress in the southwestern Idaho target area that geologists have stated holds very little oil and gas resources, AMS and SROG drilling in riverine places most vulnerable to water contamination is not in the best interests of the health and safety of Idahoans and the environment upon which we rely for our economic activities.  Moreover, oil and natural gas resources in Idaho can only be developed and moved to market with great difficulty and cost, due to lack of existing infrastructure. Continue reading →

The Idaho Legislature’s changes to the state’s ballot initiative process will make it harder to change laws from the grassroots up and have stymied efforts to launch a statewide hydraulic fracturing and waste injection ballot initiative.

This year, Gem State lawmakers passed SB 1108, making it more difficult to gather enough signatures to push successful petition campaigns.

Currently, petitioners are required to collect six percent of registered voters’ signatures statewide.  Under the new law taking effect July 1, petitioners must collect six percent of registered voters’ signatures from a minimum of 18 of the state’s 35 legislative districts.

Read more: Don’t Frack Birding Island in Idaho’s Payette River

(By Blair Koch, Earthworks Earthblog)

Idaho activists are concerned that Alta Mesa Services (AMS) of Houston, Texas, could hydraulically fracture rocks almost a mile underground to obtain natural gas and oil.  AMS submitted an application to the Idaho Department of Lands (IDL) on April 30, for a permit to directionally drill a natural gas well under Highway 52 in Payette County, Idaho, using a lease to the mineral rights under Smoke Ranch.

Like the 11 wells sunk by Bridge Resources in 2010 and 2011 through the “tight” gas sandstone formation of the Hamilton field under Payette River bottomlands (at about 1,400 to 1,750 feet), this well represents another incursion into the Willow gas field.  This deeper of two potential plays in southwestern Idaho lies beneath the lowlands, hills, and buttes surrounding the agricultural communities of New Plymouth and Fruitland, below the Hamilton sandstone and underlying shale, at depths between 4,500 and 5,800 feet in sands over basalt.

Read more: Stop the Frack Attack, Idaho

(By EcoWatch, from a Wild Idaho Rising Tide media release)