Image: Wellpad in Caroll County, OH – May 2014. Credit: LightHawk/FracTracker 

SkyTruth is announcing a very special edition of our FrackFinder Ohio project, courtesy of our partners at FracTracker and Lighthawk. With FrackFinder Ohio: Wellpad Mapper – 2014, you can map drilling in Caroll, Columbiana, Harrison, and Jefferson counties using brand new aerial survey imagery flown by LightHawk pilots back in May.

So far, all our FrackFinder projects have used aerial photos from the USDA’s National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP), but this gives you a chance to do some skytruthing with the freshest imagery around. Last year we had to wait about six months to get the latest high-resolution USDA imagery, and they only survey once every 2-3 years. This project is one of many exciting examples of how the costs of remote sensing technology are coming down; meaning we can do more frequent and better-quality skytruthing.

In this phase of FrackFinder Ohio we are continuing our wellpad mapper project, so all we need you to do is indicate if there is visible drilling activity at the site we show you. Based on the data from the 2013 imagery you should see drilling infrastructure at nearly every site. Just click the link below, we’ll show you a quick tutorial, and you’ll be ready to start mapping fracking…