Then you can help map fracking ponds all across Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale!
UPDATE: Project Moor Frog was completed in January 2014, check our frack.skytruth.org/frackfinder to see the latest FrackFinder project. We will not have results to share with the public until Project Dart Frog is finished, so help us complete this next phase!
This week we are launching a crowdmapping tool called FrackFinder PA: Project Moor Frog. In this version of FrackFinder we took all of the active drilling sites that volunteers found in Project Tadpole and created an easy-to-use website for volunteers to take a closer look at these sites. Now we're asking volunteers to mark all the ponds big enough to be associated with drilling and fracking. There's nothing to download, no special GIS experience, and we'll show you everything you need to know in a brief tutorial. All you need is a good internet connection, a computer with an internet browser, and some time to help us find ponds.
We really need your help with this project because there is currently no map of these ponds that can contain millions of gallons of wastewater from drilling and hydraulic fracturing. Additionally, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has requested this map to support their study of public health issues related to air quality degradation from this industrial activity.
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other chemicals evaporating from these ponds could be a factor in air pollution, a hypothesis supported by a number of federal reports from western Pennsylvania earlier this year.
In July 2013 a fracking waste pond referred to as the "Carter Impoundment" (above) was reported by five different neighbors for noxious chemical odors. This kind of air quality degradation could have serious health impacts but we won't know for sure without good data.
For several weeks in July, SkyTruth Alerts picked up federal pollution reports of "strong odors" and an "acid petroleum smell" coming from a fracking pond near McDonald, PA. The U.S. Coast Guard's National Response Center (NRC) received a total of ten reports from five separate addresses over the course of several weeks. One report even indicated VOC levels 56 times higher than acceptable industrial levels at a private residence over 1,000 yards from the pond.
Your help with this project will help scientists better understand the environmental and public health issues associated with these ponds and fracking as a whole. Check it out and volunteer at:
About FrackFinder: Our vision is for a world where people can see the environmental impact on the planet AND take action to protect it. To do that, we're working to build a skytruthing movement of citizens using aerial and satellite imagery to monitor environmental change and produce real data that will inform science and decisionmakers.
Just like Silicon Valley picks zany categories to name different phases of their products, we're naming FrackFinder projects after quirky critters. So far our project names are all frog-related because who loves a (well)pad more than a frog?Common Moor Frog - Piet Spaans via Wikimedia Commons
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