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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

New "Direction" on WYO Drilling Issue?

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Monday, June 4, 2007   

Out of sight and out of mind. A technology used by some in the state’s oil and gas development industry should become the standard, according to some conservationists. It's called "directional drilling." Wildlife biologist Erik Molvar with the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance says drilling can be angled horizontally for up to seven miles, which means some development could be placed outside of areas people and wildlife depend on.

“You could actually move the well pads, the facilities, the pipelines and roads, outside the sensitive habitat and then use that directional drilling to drill underneath the sensitive landscapes.”

Molvar notes that not all companies use the technology because it's more expensive. The cost is about 10 percent more per well, and for large projects, that could mean millions of dollars. It's a practice required by law in some cases in Texas, however.

Molvar promotes incentives to encourage development companies to use the direction drilling technology more often, especially in areas like the Red Desert, which is rich in wildlife habitat.

“Once you've destroyed it, and you're on that landscape with your drilling operation, and you're pushing these wildlife away, we don't have the ability to create new land and new habitat somewhere else.”

More information on directional drilling is online at www.oxy.com/OIL_GAS/technology/direct_drill.htm.



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