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Fracking helps to free nation from energy tyrants

1. Britney Spears spotted at Lynchburg restaurant

2. One person injured in Friday night shooting in Roanoke

3. East Carolina poses new challenge for Virginia Tech football

4. Lowe's tapes may hold clues to Roanoke woman's death

5. William Byrd stuns Salem in football win

6. Roanoke County electrical short quiets 5 Wheeler radio stations

7. Roanoke resource officer's quick action saved young girl

8. Concert review: Timeless Willie Nelson plays to appreciative crowd

9. History says this one will matter for Virginia Tech

10. Blacksburg lawyer Painter’s bond revoked

Greg Kozera | Kozera is a registered professional engineer with a master’s degree in environmental engineering and more than 35 years of experience in the natural gas and oil industry. He is the president of the Virginia Oil & Gas Association.

Sunday, August 18, 2013

The George Washington National Forest is beautiful, and we are free to enjoy it. Freedom isn’t free. Brave Americans have won our freedom with their sacrifices and lives. It takes energy to be free. We have been dependent for oil on foreign powers who are not our friends. Thanks to horizontal drilling and fracking, we now have enough energy in the United States to be free from energy tyrants.

We all need to do our part for freedom by being informed with the truth. In Virginia, the natural gas industry fracks horizontal wells on a regular basis with no water and no chemicals, only nitrogen gas. Where chemicals are used, they aren’t toxic. Check it out on www.fracfocus.org.

Oil and gas royalties are a leading source of federal non-tax revenue. We get a lot of energy from federal lands. If the new GW regulations are expanded to federal lands, they will be the beginning of the end of our dream of energy independence.

We can have both energy and beauty of national forests. Virginia Oil & Gas Association member companies are partnering with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries to successfully repopulate emerging species that thrive on first-growth grasslands on reclaimed gas well sites, creating an increase in deer, wild turkeys, rabbits, birds and even butterflies. This partnership also resulted in the first successful reintroduction of a herd of elk to Virginia in more than 100 years.

The new GW Forest Plan permits windmills that kill more than half a million birds annually, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. After reclamation, a horizontal well site takes up less surface area than a single windmill.

The GW will still be beautiful in 20 years whether fracking is permitted there or not. Will future generations have the energy and freedom to enjoy it?

Saturday, September 14, 2013