Royalty check for some, but Is it safe to be gas fracking so close to San Antonio's main water supply?
Permits and completed well in Eagle Ford shale oil
Edwards aquifer recharge zone..
Fracking compounds found in water samples...
Findings show fracking likely linked to groundwater pollution in U.S.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britis...water-epa.htmlThe EPA announced Thursday that it found compounds likely associated with fracking chemicals in the groundwater beneath Pavillion, a Wyoming community where residents say their well water reeks of chemicals.
Calgary-based Encana owns the Pavillion gas field. An announced $45-million US sale to Midland, Texas-based Legacy Reserves fell through last month amid what Encana said were Legacy's concerns about the EPA investigation.
Encana spokesman Doug Hock said there was much to question about the draft study. The compounds EPA said could be associated with fracking, he said, could have had other origins not related to gas development.
"Those could just have likely been brought about by contamination in their sampling process or construction of their well," Hock said.
The low levels of hydrocarbons found in local water wells likewise haven't been linked to gas development and substances such as methane are naturally occurring in the area.
"There are still a lot of questions that need to be answered. This is a probability and it is one we believe is incorrect," Hock said.
In a statement on its website, Encana says it remains committed to seeing that the investigations into determining the source of the compounds found in the Pavillion groundwater are backed by sound science that is reviewed by independent peers.
The EPA said its announcement is the first step in a process of opening up its findings for review by the public and other scientists.
"EPA's highest priority remains ensuring that Pavillion residents have access to safe drinking water," said Jim Martin, EPA regional administrator in Denver. "We look forward to having these findings in the draft report informed by a transparent and public review process."
The EPA also emphasized that the findings are specific to the Pavillion area. The agency said the fracking that occurred in Pavillion differed from fracking methods used elsewhere in regions with different geological characteristics.
The fracking occurred below the level of the drinking water aquifer and close to water wells, the EPA said. Elsewhere, drilling is more remote and fracking occurs much deeper than the level of groundwater that would normally be used.
This study was specific to the Pavillion area but still brings to question whether Texas has done enough study regading the spread of the dangerous chemicals that will be used in gas fracking near our own aquifer. At the very least, I encourage those in counties who are effected by this and other fracking concerns to watch the do entary gasland ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZe1AeH0Qz8 ) and be very proactive toward protecting the purity of your most precious natural resource....
Last edited by Nbadan; 12-11-2011 at 04:14 PM.
the shale doesn't seem that close to the Edwards, and it's downstream of the Edwards, anyway.
But SAWS recently made a controversial contract with some county down that way to pump out their brackish water, could be contaminated with fracking fluids.
http://www.saws.org/our_water/waterr...ts/desal.shtml
http://www.saws.org/our_water/waterr...ects/asr.shtml
Agreeing with boutons (that was hard to write), the shale doesn't really threaten the Aquifer but I would be concerned about the water being imported from the south.
Full disclosure: I'm an opponent of fracking with the current methods and technology used.
Don't forget that we also have many readers who live in the area of the Eagle Ford shale drilling...the project is leading to a mini-economic boom there and some of the sudden wealth effects are also being felt in San Antonio where lower housing inventories could lead to a temporary increase in home sales prices until the housing supply south of town catches up with the demand....many workers are living in temporary housing...the project is also bringing higher paying jobs to the area, and people who will spend that money in San Antonio..
There is also the Barnett shale project near Dallas...perhaps some of our Dallas readers can touch on the effects of that project on the region...all boom, no bust?
http://www.rrc.state.tx.us/barnettsh...yproducing.php
I would say overall...its been a boom. Drilling is pretty contentious in the Ft Worth area (now. Early on there wasnt alot of resistance.) ...not so much on the Dallas side.
I own rental properties in North Ft. Worth. The royalty payments were pretty substantial.
The Age of Thirst in the American West
Coming to a Theater Near You: The Greatest Water Crisis in the History of Civilization
here’s the bad news in a nuts : if you live in the Southwest or just about anywhere in the American West, you or your children and grandchildren could soon enough be facing the Age of Thirst, which may also prove to be the greatest water crisis in the history of civilization. No kidding.
If that gets you down, here’s a little cheer-up note: the end is not yet nigh.
In fact, this year the weather elsewhere rode to the rescue, and the news for the Southwest was good where it really mattered. Since January, the biggest reservoir in the United States, Lake Mead, backed up by the Hoover Dam and just 30 miles southwest of Las Vegas, has risen almost 40 feet. That lake is crucial when it comes to watering lawns or taking showers from Arizona to California. And the near 40-foot surge of extra water offered a significant upward nudge to the Southwest’s water reserves.
The Colorado River, which the reservoir impounds, supplies all or part of the water on which nearly 30 million people depend, most of them living downstream of Lake Mead in Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson, Tijuana, and scores of smaller communities in the United States and Mexico.
Back in 1999, the lake was full. Patricia Mulroy, who heads the water utility serving Las Vegas, rues the optimism of those bygone days. “We had a fifty-year, reliable water supply,” she says. “By 2002, we had no water supply. We were out. We were done. I swore to myself we’d never do that again.”
In 2000, the lake began to fall -- like a boulder off a cliff, bouncing a couple of times on the way down. Its water level dropped a staggering 130 feet, stopping less than seven feet above the stage that would have triggered reductions in downstream deliveries. Then -- and here’s the good news, just in case you were wondering -- last winter, it snowed prodigiously up north in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.
The spring and summer run-off from those snowpacks brought enormous relief. It renewed what we in the Southwest like to call the Hydro-Illogic cycle: when drought comes, everybody wrings their hands and promises to ins ute needed reform, if only it would rain a little. Then the drought breaks or eases and we all return to business as usual, until the cycle comes around to drought again.
So don’t be fooled. One day, perhaps soon, Lake Mead will renew its downward plunge. That’s a certainty, the experts tell us. And here’s the thing: the next time, a sudden rescue by heavy snows in the northern Rockies might not come. If the snowpacks of the future are merely ordinary, let alone puny, then you’ll know that we really are entering a new age.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/1754...g_of_the_west/
There's nasty uranium and other mineral extracting out west, plus the usual oil and fracking, so plenty of opportunity to screw up dimishing surface and ground water supplies.
The Repugs want to kill the EPA and any other regulations protecting land, water, and air.
The writing was on the wall long long ago.
Back in 07'
http://seekingalpha.com/article/2441...ter-should-you
"Pickens’ new company, Mesa Water, has been buying up ground water rights in Roberts County, Texas - 200,000 acres in all. He says that over a 30-year period, he expects to make more than $1 billion on his investment of $75 million."
And he wasn't the only one buying up then and I'm sure he owns considerably more water rights, right now.
The Shocking Republican Attack on the Environment and Our Drinking Water
But today there is a deep disconnect between escalating public concern and government action. Numerous bills passed this year by the Republican-led House of Representatives bash well-established scientific evidence, attempting to dismantle or delay regulations that safeguard America's water, food, air and environment.
The current war on clean water is part of a Republican deregulation agenda that screams "job killer!" at any environmental protection effort.
Both Senate and House Republicans make no secret of their ultimate goal: to end all environmental regulation and abolish the Environmental Protection Agency. "EPA is a rogue agency," Nebraska Republican Representative Lee Terry recently told the Associated Press.
Texas Governor Rick Perry opened his presidential campaign by saying the agency "won't know what hit 'em" if he is elected president.
But, as David Goldston, a Natural Resources Defense Council researcher, notes, "They're changing fundamental laws, not just blocking regulations."
The REINS Act, which passed the House of Representatives on December 7, is among the most draconian of these new initiatives.
By a vote of 241 to 184, the House approved the Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny Act, which would require an up-or-down vote in Congress on all rules with an annual economic impact of $100 million or more proposed by regulatory agencies.
Four House Democrats voted for the bill: John Barrow of Georgia, Dan Boren of Oklahoma, Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, and Colin Peterson of Minnesota.
The REINS Act has been flying under the media radar, embedded in both Senate and House plans for "job creation." It would require a Congressional vote on any regulation with an annual economic impact of $100 million or more -- that's 50 to 100 votes per year -- creating a scheduling nightmare that would make passage of any new federal regulation virtually impossible.
Under the Act, if one house rejected or failed to vote on a rule within 70 working days, it would "be dispatched to the regulatory graveyard," notes "The Washington Post." REINS would return environmental regulation to 1890s standards -- when corporations polluted with impunity.
While advertised as money savers, these attempts at deregulation are thinly-veiled corporate giveaways that will bolster industry profits at the expense of our families' health. These attacks on Clean Air and Clean Water act protections, if passed, would cause tens of thousands of premature deaths annually.
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/153401
=======
ing Repugs, gotta hate 'em every last ing one of them, and any Dems that vote with them.
It's not just the chemicals used in fracking, it's also the amount of water used in fracking. They're drilling deeper in the Eagle Ford meaning more water wasted. And if you have hundreds of drilling sites in the Eagle Ford, think about the water being used up.
When the communities south of S.A. start having water problems, whether by contaminated water or even lack of water, they'll be looking at their neighbors to the north for help.
With the population increasing rapidly in this area and throughout Tx now and for the next few decades, protecting the Edwards Aquifer will get tougher and tougher.
I've read that 1M gallons of water are polluted and pumped down a single fracking hole, and what water comes back up is beyond detoxification, put into ponds where inevitably there will be leaks into subsurface water, and overflows during heavy rains and floods.
You've "heard" that?
As for the OP's question, no there is no chance of Edwards contamination.
Fracking has it's water use issues but the waste water can be and is handled responsibly. There's too much money at stake for the companies to risk getting shut down on water quality issues. I know there have been legitimate cross contamination issues in other parts of the country but the eagle ford is a DEEP structure...like at 12,000 feet, thousands of feet below the water tables. Chances of cross contamination from fracking are really slim to none.
UCA, oil/gasco division, lying to fracked landowners.
Regulations say they must disclose risks, liabilities, fully to capitalists, but can lie to landowners. Another game rigged.
Landowners left out of the loop on 'fracking' risks
By Neela Banerjee, Washington Bureau
Mon Dec 12 2011 12:00 AM
Reporting from Washington-- Natural gas companies that regularly use hydraulic fracturing to drill disclose the risks to shareholders, but not to landowners, according to a report released Monday.
As a result of disclosure requirements in federal securities law, some companies that have led the push into the mid-Atlantic and Northeast to use hydraulic fracturing have described to shareholders in explicit terms the potential dangers of their work, including leaks, spills and explosions. One company, Chesapeake Energy Corp., touted in its annual report in March that its efforts to lease land from private owners was a "land grab."
At the same time, oil and gas companies and the land acquisition companies working for them did not mention to landowners the same potential safety and environmental risks, according to the report by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based organization that has been critical of the industry.
The report said a description by Cabot Oil & Gas, a major gas producer, in its 2008 form 10-K — a securities filing of the company's performance — was typical: "Our business involves a variety of operating risks, including: well-site blowouts, cratering and explosions; equipment failures … pollution and other environmental risks."
Hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as "fracking," involves shooting water infused with chemicals and sand at high pressure into shale formations to tap reservoirs of natural gas.
Craig Sautner and his wife, Julie, said they were never told of any risks when they leased about 3.5 acres of their land in Dimock, Pa., to Cabot in 2008, the report said. After Cabot began drilling in the area in 2009, state officials determined that Cabot's operations had contaminated well water used by the Sautners and 18 other Dimock families. Cabot disputed the finding.
The company did not respond to emails seeking comment on the report.
Jack Norman, chief executive of Elexco Land Services, a property acquisition company, told the report's researchers that his company did not practice the same level of disclosure as expected in securities filings because the actual risk of gas field accidents was negligible.
"We believe the risk is very, very low," he told The Times in a telephone interview from Pennsylvania. He added that companies reaped no benefit from such disclosure to landowners: "No one is going to go out there and say something like, 'At one of every 10,000 of our wells, we may have an incident.' No one will do it."
Some landowners who have long experience with the industry criticized the report for implying that landowners bear no responsibility for finding out the risks of fossil fuel development. Jerry Simmons, executive director of the National Assn. of Royalty Owners, which represents landowners with oil and gas production on their property, said he was "flabbergasted" that landowners signed leases without taking the time to understand the implications.
"It's almost offensive that people say, 'I didn't know what was going on and I signed it anyway,' " Simmons said in a telephone interview from Tulsa, Okla. "Especially if someone is pressuring you, shouldn't that raise some red flags?"
Disclosure statements that companies make to shareholders are public do ents, generally available online.
The report's authors, however, said that "drilling companies clearly have a double standard" when discussing risk. "Shareholders are warned, but many landowners are not. This means that thousands of landowners may be signing legally binding contracts without understanding that their property, their health, their finances and their communities could suffer serious harm."
The increased use of fracking has unlocked large new gas deposits in small towns and rural areas along the Eastern Seaboard but also touched off a debate about risks. Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency linked contamination of well water in central Wyoming to fracking.
Typically, gas producers and their agents lease land from private owners for a small sum and pay royalties on any production that occurs. Once a lease is signed, landowners have little chance of getting out of it and most can be unilaterally prolonged by the company.
http://mobile.latimes.com/p.p?m=b&a=...%3D0%26DPL%3D3
Damn boutons...have you EVER read a prospectus? They throw in every possible or impossible risk, real or imagined in order to try to stave off shareholder lawsuits in case the stock goes down.
There have been several small "earthquakes" in the Barnett Shale area. Specualtion is that it's the result of all of the horizontal oil and gas drilling and subsequent fracking in the area.
My question/concern is that if this is true, will these tremors significanlty damage the integrety in the casing that is protecting the underground water zones?
Earthquakes are shifts in tectonic plates deep in the earth. They shouldn't affect a drill casing.
the only way to solve this, allow drob to continue waste water on his lawn...hahahaha
It's why I put the word in quotes. I'll rephrase. Are horizontal drilling and fracking causing underground events that are resulting in home foundations being damaged and shallow earth being significantly shifted? If so, wouldn't this also lead to some risk of failed casing?
the point of the article was that all the CYA risks are hidden from landowners.
Short answer? No. As far as I know fracking in the Eagle Ford is happening around 12,000 feet and is contained within the rock structure at that depth...no way that's going to cause foundation cracks of affect the surface at all.
I really don't know the answer. There seems to be a lot of evidence either way and I thought I might get to the bottom of it on SpursTalk.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquak...usb0006alu.php
"There's too much money at stake for the companies to risk getting shut down on water quality issues."
holy CC pimping for the unregulated, unpoliced/unenforced frackers, as if they gave a about the EPA (but they are paying the Repugs to kill EPA), why they paid head to exempt frackers from EPA regs completely and ALL testing of frackers' damages.
The whole world is out to get you Boutons. Just give up and kill yourself.
naw, slapping you righties is too damn much fun.
If you ever do it, it will be the first time.
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