Here’s this week’s top shale gas stories:

( 1 ) Marcellus Shale Waste More Radioactive than other Products at Landfills

This Imagine Dragons’ song has made the radio rounds this summer and it may be about Marcellus shale waste. The waste, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, trips more radioactivity alarms at landfills than any other waste.

In 2012, nearly 1,000 trucks hauling 15,769 tons of Marcellus waste were stopped at Pennsylvania landfill gates after tripping the alarms.

It’s not something that landfill owners or the DEP are alarmed about.

Read it:

“The radioactive material in Marcellus waste is naturally occurring. It’s mostly radium, a product of uranium decay, and it has been underground for millions of years in the Marcellus formation. Dredging earth and gas out of the ground brings up the radioactive elements.”

Get the whole story at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

» Via: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette › Marcellus Shale waste trips more radioactivity alarms than other products left at landfills

( 2 ) Fracking Linked to 109 Earthquakes in Youngstown

Between January 2011 and February 2012, 109 tremors were recorded in Youngstown and the author of a new article points the finger at deep-injection wells, according to Science 2.0.

There’s been debate about whether or not the Northstar 1 deep injection well in Youngstown was to blame for the quakes, but Dr. Won-Young Kim of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, studied the quakes and found that the activity was tied to the Northstar 1 well.

Kim found dips in earthquake activity during Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day and Thanksgiving. The holidays were the smoking gun, as the deep-injection well wouldn’t have been operating on those days.

» Via: Science 2.0 › Fracking Linked To 109 Earthquakes in Youngstown, Ohio

( 3 ) Man Charged with Stealing Mineral Rights

How can you steal mineral rights? Well, if you’re Derek A Candelore, you set up fake companies and forge signatures, says the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Candelore was indicted on charges that he stole mineral rights from landowners in Washington County, Pennsylvania.

Read it:

“According to a federal grand jury, Mr. Candelore acquired rights for four parcels of land in Washington County by setting up fake corporations starting in 2010.”

» Via: The Pittsbught Post-Gazette › Jeannette man indicted on charges of stealing mineral rights

( 4 ) Vacant Shale Jobs Hard to Fill

The Columbus Dispatch reported recently that incomes are up in shale-laden Ohio counties, but jobs are not.  The Marcellus Shale Coalition, an oil and gas industry group, is reporting that skilled jobs in the Marcellus and Utica are hard to fill.

The survey found that the most difficult jobs to fill in 2012 were professional positions in the engineering and construction fields. The survey cites qualified talent, competition and willingness to relocate as the three biggest hurdles in finding new workers.

The coalition expects to hire 4,000 new employees in 2013. Again, the majority of the jobs will be in engineering and construction, according to the survey.

Read the entire survey.

» Via: The Marcellus Shale Coalition

( 5 ) Anti-Fracking Nuns?

It seems like nuns have joined environmentalists in opposing shale gas development. A video from Mother Jones follows the story of the Sisters of Loretto, a tenacious group of nuns who live in Loretto, Kentucky.

The nuns have become the faces of a grassroots campaign against the Bluegrass Pipeline, a pipeline that stretches from Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia to the Gulf Coast, passing through Kentucky.

 » Via: Mother Jones › Video: Meet the Singing, Anti-Fracking Nuns