A year after the Illinois Department of Natural Resources proposed the first draft of the administrative rules regulating high-volume hydraulic fracking, the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules approved the final rules on November 6, 2014, which are to be published in the Illinois Register by November 15, 2014.
Several Southern Illinois landowners and an environmental group, Southern Illinoisans Against Fracturing our Environment (SAFE), filed suit this week in Madison County seeking an injunction against the recently passed Horizontal Fracturing Regulatory Act ...
Hydraulic fracturing—“fracking”—involves pumping water mixed with sand and chemicals deep underground to create cracks in a shale formation to allow oil or natural gas to be recovered. Concern has been raised that these cracks will allow the fracking chemicals and/or methane gas to contaminate the groundwater near the fracking operation. Two recent studies dispel this concern.
The Department of Energy released a report finding that fracking chemicals and gas are not migrating up through the rock to groundwater. This report followed an 18-month study of fracking ...
It has been over a year since Illinois took the first step towards regulated high-volume hydraulic fracking by passing the Illinois Hydraulic Fracturing Regulatory Act225 ILCS 732/1-1 et seq. Under the Act, high-volume, horizontal hydraulic fracturing operations require a permit. But a permit could not be obtained until the Illinois Department of Natural Resources published the administrative rules that will govern fracking. Recently, the IDNR released amended proposed rules for final approval by the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, which has until November 15 to ...
