Time to choose: clean water or natural gas

[ElNono]

I drink Drano for breakfast... gimmie mo gas

[RandomGuy]

The word "may" is used here.

Is it or isn't it harming nearby water wells?

If so, is it possible to close off those wells?

I think the evidence is fairly conclusive.

In a couple of cases the contaminants were found to be the exact mix of chemicals used by Haliburton in their process.

Each company has a specific mix of chemicals, so figuring out which one's activities caused the damage is fairly easy.

http://www.riverreporter.com/issues/...ews-wells.html
http://www.propublica.org/feature/ep...m-fracking-825
http://blog.taragana.com/science/201...s-rules-10654/


Natural gas producers, like any industry that wants to hide malfeasance or the bad effects of their activities, are the first to say "but there is no evidence", but there are plenty of investigations ongoing.

My native Wyoming, having vitually no history of heavy industry, and up until the recent natural gas drilling boom, virtually no instances of contaminated water, is probably the best case for a direct causal link.

Similar instances in Colorado, in places with no history of mining, industry, or other water contamination, suddenly developed nasty polluted wells shortly after natural gas fracking in the area.

[coyotes_geek]

1) I don't think it is a false dilemma. I generally don't do logical fallacies.
The problem is that the more widespread the practice, the more likely it will be to really contaminate water supplies. The real problem is that this is not the kind of contamination that can be cleaned up once it s up the water table.

2) Last I checked, I don't have to "voluntarily" drink Formula 409 or drano, much less shower in it.

I might voluntarily hold a lead bullet in my hand, but that doesn't mean I want my pipes made out of the stuff.

You are right that it is not an absolute trade-off. Please forgive my rhetorical flourish.

The question we must still answer is how much of our water supply will we allow to be contaminated for how much gas?

We MUST decide which carries greater weight when thinking about public policy on the matter.

Sorry, but it pretty much is a false dilemma for a number of reasons. First and foremost being that your average fracking operation is occuring a mile below ground or deeper and your average municipal water supply is either on the surface or within a thousand feet or so of the surface. The upper couple thousand of feet of every oil and gas well has multiple layers of casings specifically to prevent groundwater contamination. In order for chemicals to get into groundwater supplies there would either have to be a failure in all the casing layers, or the chemicals would have to find a way to travel vertically thousands of feet through rock that's probably impermeable.

Second, the chemical additives in fracking fluids make up less than 1% of the volume of the mixture. The other 99% is basically just water and sand. The chemical additives are heavily diluted from the start and even if they should make it into a municipal water supply they would only be diluted further and would still end up going through a water treatment process.

Third, it is absolutely possible to remove the chemicals from the water because that's exactly what happens when the fracking fluids are collected after use. The used fluids get transported to a processing plant, the chemicals get removed and the water gets returned to the environment.

Fourth, a lot of those chemical additives we already come in contact with. Hydrochloric acid is what our stomachs use to break down our food, microbe killers get used to treat our water and our wastewater and anyone who uses hand lotion is willfully rubbing a petroleum based lubricant on themselves.

Fifth, once a well is fracked, the fluids go away and pose no further threat to the water supply.

Is there absolutely no chance whatsoever of fracking chemicals getting into municipal water supplies? Of course not. But the chances are incredibly low, and the chances of the chemicals being able to get into your drinking water in concentrations bad enough to hurt you are lower still. I'm not saying it never happens, but it rarely happens. We already have about 1 natural gas well per 1,000 people in this country (in Texas it's about 1 per 300). If fracking were some huge threat to our municipal water supplies the problem would have been blatantly obvious a long time ago.

[DarrinS]

I know this would never happen here. The enviro wackos here will hardly let you build a golf course over the aquifer because they're so afraid of losing the blind salimander.

[RandomGuy]

Sorry, but it pretty much is a false dilemma for a number of reasons. First and foremost being that your average fracking operation is occuring a mile below ground or deeper and your average municipal water supply is either on the surface or within a thousand feet or so of the surface. The upper couple thousand of feet of every oil and gas well has multiple layers of casings specifically to prevent groundwater contamination. In order for chemicals to get into groundwater supplies there would either have to be a failure in all the casing layers, or the chemicals would have to find a way to travel vertically thousands of feet through rock that's probably impermeable.

Second, the chemical additives in fracking fluids make up less than 1% of the volume of the mixture. The other 99% is basically just water and sand. The chemical additives are heavily diluted from the start and even if they should make it into a municipal water supply they would only be diluted further and would still end up going through a water treatment process.

Third, it is absolutely possible to remove the chemicals from the water because that's exactly what happens when the fracking fluids are collected after use. The used fluids get transported to a processing plant, the chemicals get removed and the water gets returned to the environment.

Fourth, a lot of those chemical additives we already come in contact with. Hydrochloric acid is what our stomachs use to break down our food, microbe killers get used to treat our water and our wastewater and anyone who uses hand lotion is willfully rubbing a petroleum based lubricant on themselves.

Fifth, once a well is fracked, the fluids go away and pose no further threat to the water supply.

Is there absolutely no chance whatsoever of fracking chemicals getting into municipal water supplies? Of course not. But the chances are incredibly low, and the chances of the chemicals being able to get into your drinking water in concentrations bad enough to hurt you are lower still. I'm not saying it never happens, but it rarely happens. We already have about 1 natural gas well per 1,000 people in this country (in Texas it's about 1 per 300). If fracking were some huge threat to our municipal water supplies the problem would have been blatantly obvious a long time ago.

I would tend to agree for the most part that in the past the odds were pretty low for this affecting municipal water supplies. For the most part most of the affected wells were for ranching.

Given that we will be drilling anywhere and everywhere in the coming decades as reserves and supplies wind down, such contamination, despite the best of intentions, WILL happen.

We will then be forced to spend more money down the road for a looooong time for the extra bit of natural gas we will get out of this process.

[RandomGuy]

Fifth, once a well is fracked, the fluids go away and pose no further threat to the water supply.

If you can prove this to me to a reasonable degree, that would make me a LOT more comfortable about this process.

My main concern is very long term contamination for short term gain, as is the case with a lot of mining/drilling practices.

In the rush to get "cheap" energy, I think we ignore a lot of hidden, long term costs, and the corporations that benefit most are the most likely to downplay those costs at the expense of public good.

Do we seriously have any credible scientific, long-term studies that prove this statement?

[boutons_deux]

"the fluids go away and pose no further threat to the water supply."

Thanks for oilco/gasco press release.

Same is true of oil sands, coal and mineral mining. As sweet and innocent as fresh fallen snow (uh, not American snow).

[coyotes_geek]

If you can prove this to me to a reasonable degree, that would make me a LOT more comfortable about this process.

My main concern is very long term contamination for short term gain, as is the case with a lot of mining/drilling practices.

In the rush to get "cheap" energy, I think we ignore a lot of hidden, long term costs, and the corporations that benefit most are the most likely to downplay those costs at the expense of public good.

Do we seriously have any credible scientific, long-term studies that prove this statement?

I can't cite a specific percentage of what percentage of fracking fluids get recovered because it's dependent on factors like geology and composition of the fracking fluid. I do know that you never get back 100%, so you're right that some of what gets pumped down there stays down there. So I'll retract my 5th point.

Still, I don't think there's cause to get overly concerned. The practice of hydraulic fracking has been going on for 60 years and it's been used on literally millions of wells world wide. If there were widespread concerns about the process, I think 60 years and millions of applications would be sufficient to flush those to the surface. (no pun intended) Yes, incidents happen. But compared to the number of incident-free applications of the fracking process, worrying about hydraulic fracking polluting your local water supply is like worrying about getting struck by lightning, IMHO.

Maybe this will make you feel better about hydraulic fracking. Back in the early 70s the idea of nuclear fracking was being explored. Fortunately, that one never took hold.

[RandomGuy]

I can't cite a specific percentage of what percentage of fracking fluids get recovered because it's dependent on factors like geology and composition of the fracking fluid. I do know that you never get back 100%, so you're right that some of what gets pumped down there stays down there. So I'll retract my 5th point.

Still, I don't think there's cause to get overly concerned. The practice of hydraulic fracking has been going on for 60 years and it's been used on literally millions of wells world wide. If there were widespread concerns about the process, I think 60 years and millions of applications would be sufficient to flush those to the surface. (no pun intended) Yes, incidents happen. But compared to the number of incident-free applications of the fracking process, worrying about hydraulic fracking polluting your local water supply is like worrying about getting struck by lightning, IMHO.

Maybe this will make you feel better about hydraulic fracking. Back in the early 70s the idea of nuclear fracking was being explored. Fortunately, that one never took hold.

I for one would like a bit more solid data on this. There is some evidence to suggest that some really nasty chemicals are being injected.


Saying water is 99% pure is also a bit misleading. Toxic levels of things like heavy metals are measured in the parts per billion, that is by the way, 0.000000001%.

I could be snarky and ask if anyone wants to drink a 1% solution of [insert carcinogen here], but I think we can agree that it doesn't take much unmeasured contamination to you up.

The thing is that when ranchers drill wells for water so that their livestock, they may or may not come back to test that water 5 or 10 years down the line.

If, thanks to some gas drilling unknown to the rancher in the next county, his wells start coming up with some nasty heavy metals, you could very well end up eating what those cows are drinking.

I think we need to sink some good money into studying this, as we are now drilling more natural gas than we ever have before, so the odds of bad things happening are exponentially higher than they were 60 years ago.

If we get some decent, well-funded, scientific studies that say that the risks truly are minimal, then fine, keep doing it. If you can do this without injecting really nasty into it, then fine, keep doing it.

The thing is that we can't really truly take some of this pollution back after we have done it. We have to live with the consequences forever.

Given that water, clean or not, is starting to get to be scarcer and scarcer, with people having to drill deeper and deeper to keep up with demand, I would say the risks of this practice biting us in the ass in the future are greater than you seem to imply.

I am not against extractive industries per se, but I am against them forcing the costs of their pollution on others. That is, in essence, stealing.

[ElNono]

I could be snarky and ask if anyone wants to drink a 1% solution of [insert carcinogen here], but I think we can agree that it doesn't take much unmeasured contamination to you up.

How may people inhale tar straight to their lungs on an everyday basis, and are fully aware of it being a carcinogen?

[boutons_deux]

There is a reason that fracking companies got Congress to exempt fracking companies from EPA (clean water) regulations, while allowing companies to hide the contents of the toxic they frack with.

Fracking seriously pollutes ground water is the working assumption until it can be proven otherwise. Guilty until proven innocent, and if proven guilty, too late, the water is ed.

[Blake]

Fracking seriously pollutes ground water is the working assumption until it can be proven otherwise.

seems to me if it seriously pollutes ground water that it would be easy enough to prove.

[boutons_deux]

Part of the dictation by oil/gas co's to their lobbyists employed by the captured MMS, EPA, etc is that there be NO investigations of fracking causing water pollution.

[boutons_deux]

Here's how dubya and his Repugs willfully kneecapped regulatory agencies, no matter how much damage, no matter how many people are killed or maimed by the corporate environmental destructions.

AlterNet

EPA Staffers Were Forced to Ignore Science, Investigation Finds

By Sheila Kaplan, Investigative Fund at The Nation Ins ute
Posted on April 30, 2010, Printed on April 30, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/146680/

Environmental Protection Agency staffers have been forced to ignore relevant science, have lacked key monitoring data on human health and environmental impacts, and have worked without crucial information needed to protect the public, according to the preliminary findings of a scientific advisory board.

The Committee on Science Integration for Decision Making is still working on its investigation, but has quietly posted draft summaries on the agency's Web site of 73 interviews with 450 EPA employees -- an unusual bottom-up examination that could bring sweeping changes to the 40-year-old federal agency. Some staffers traced the problems in the agency to the Bush administration, while others said the obstacles are longstanding and continue to this day.

EPA has an enormous mandate -- protecting air, water, land and human health from environmental pollutants. While some staffers gave the agency high marks, the interviews overall portray an organization that has been hobbled by political pressure to avoid damaging industry; has lacked sufficient scientists in regional offices; has been slow to act against known hazards, and has had a tendency to let products with harmful pollutants enter the marketplace and the environment without first ensuring their safety.

The review of the EPA followed accusations by a former agency official that President George W. Bush had pressured agency employees to water down concerns of global climate change, a Government Accountability Office report criticizing the agency's toxic chemical review process, and stern recommendations by the National Research Council, a division of the National Academy of Sciences.

In response, the committee, made up of academics, industry scientists, and government officials from outside EPA, was launched in 2008 by Stephen L. Johnson, who served as agency chief during Bush's second term. Pointing out that the environmental agency was "perceived to lack a strong scientific foundation," Johnson asked the panel to explore how the EPA can improve its use of science. EPA administrator Lisa Jackson endorsed the committee and its work began in earnest.

"Unfortunately the reality through the years, both those that Democrats were in charge and the years the Republicans were in charge, was, if you agreed with a decision, it was great science and not politicized, and if you disagreed with a decision, then the science was politicized," Johnson told Politics Daily. "Anything I and the agency can do now to increase that foundation of science and better integrate the science in decision making, I believe that the public is better served."

As part of its mission, the committee -- informally called the Science Advisory Board -- interviewed scores of EPA staffers from around the country between October 2009 and February 2010. To encourage open discussion, managers were generally interviewed separately from the rest of the staff. Many of the panel's interviews were conducted in groups. Although the committee listed the names of everyone in each group, in most cases they did not reveal who said what.

Some participants noted "the chilling effect of management decisions made with the expectation that science would be 'ginned up' to support decisions already made," according to a committee summary. One high-level EPA official charged that "the science review is used to create long-term loops that keep us from getting the latest information implemented in the field." Another staffer said decisions on how to regulate air pollutants were "influenced more by politics than by science."

One scientist who was interviewed believes the agency has been too eager to endorse new technologies or new uses of chemicals. As an example, she cited the EPA's support of tire crumb, shredded tires used to line playgrounds to keep kids from being injured if they fall. Tire crumb can contain arsenic, cadmium, and other metals and toxic substances. Although EPA in December said the material was safe, this scientist told investigators, "Tire crumb, for example, should have been evaluated more fully before EPA supported its use for children's playgrounds and ball fields...The result is a costly effort "post hoc" to assess children's exposures to tire crumb waste, a problem that could have been prevented."

On the bright side, there are some departments where staffers say politics has had little influence. EPA's emergency response efforts during the giant 2008 spill in Kingston, Tenn., which dumped more than a billion tons of toxic coal ash and buried more than 400 acres of homes and farmland in sludge, was viewed as independent and well-coordinated. And numerous staffers -- managers in particular -- defended agency decisions as made only by weight of evidence.

But many of the employees, at all levels, offered pointed criticisms of their employer. Committee member Wayne Landis, a professor and director of the Ins ute of Environmental Toxicology at Western Washington University, who participated in many interviews, told Politics Daily, "They (the EPA staffers) were very straightforward, weren't they?"

Barnes Johnson, deputy director in the Office of Superfund Remediation and Technology Innovation, told the panel one problem for the EPA involves "evaluating [the] latest toxicology information for high profile contaminants important to certain cons uency groups where there are big financial implications." Translation: Powerful players in commerce don't want chemicals they manufacture or use to be assessed as hazardous. Such a finding might require them to take products off the market, be liable for costly cleanups or face lawsuits by individuals who have been harmed.

He cited the examples of the chemicals TCE (trichloroethylene), dioxin and perchloroethylene – three man-made contaminants known to pose a threat to human health that are still plentiful in the environment. EPA first started studying TCE, a solvent widely used for degreasing metal parts, back in the 1980s, yet the Superfund staffer complained, "Arguments about how to interpret the available science are perpetuated to keep new science from being implemented."

Other staffers said they were also worried about TCE. One employee from EPA Region 9 (which encompasses California, Nevada and Arizona, Hawaii, the Pacific Islands and tribal nations), "expressed concern that decisions get complicated with TCE, he is not sure that the [standard] is stringent enough, [despite] a need for immediate action." TCE is linked to cancer and brain damage. Another EPA science advisory board is now studying the agency's draft assessment of TCE.

Across the board, EPA employees said they were frustrated by the glacial pace of decisions to restrict or ban chemicals that are thought to be hazardous. Reviews on some individual pollutants are more than seven years behind schedule, according to those interviewed, forcing them to rely on outdated research to make decisions about protecting the public.

The committee cited numerous staffers who were upset at the decline in EPA monitoring of human health and environmental impacts, especially for groundwater quality and soil.

Another EPA colleague agreed, telling investigators that regional resources for monitoring air and water have been nearly eliminated.

The Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances "generally does not know how chemicals are being used, and the nature of human exposures and environmental releases. Often even manufacturers have no information about how customers use their chemicals," the committee noted.

Many EPA staffers said they are concerned about the nation's water supply, including the migration of pharmaceuticals and nanoparticles -- which are man-made microscopic compounds -- which may end up in drinking water. There is evidence that some nanoparticles, in particular nano-scale anium dioxide, often used in sunscreen, cosmetics and food packaging, may cause cancer. EPA is just beginning to study the safety of nanoparticles, which are already ubiquitous in consumer goods.

A staffer in Region 8, which includes Montana, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and tribal nations, said she was highly concerned about poor sewage treatment. "EPA appears to have an aversion to political and fiscal risk," she said of her agency, "but not an equal aversion to environmental risk."

Many employees complained about a lack of recruitment and training of expert scientists -- there are not enough to go around. Numerous staffers said they expect this problem to get worse as current scientists retire.

A scientist working on radiation issues said: "highly technical people -- engineers and toxicologists -- are managed by people who may not fully understand" what their underlings are working on. This leads them to rely on their personal opinion instead of science when making decisions. Also, they don't have enough staff to evaluate the work done by outside contractors, she said.

The 40-year-old independent nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council tracked what it saw as a decline in environmental monitoring during the Bush years. In a recent update provided to Politics Daily, the environmental group said that by January 2010, EPA improved its testing of drinking water for industrial pollutants, and monitoring for lead pollution in air, but still needs to increase its monitoring of pesticide levels in urban waterways and better assess health threats at hazardous waste sites.

"During the Bush years they created a 'hear no evil, see no evil' situation," NRDC senior scientist Dr. Gina Solomon said. "Since things weren't being tested and monitored it looked liked there were no problems out there. ... I have to credit the current administration and Congress. There have been big improvements in monitoring programs over the past year and there's still a lot that needs to be done."

Stephen Johnson, who was widely criticized by environmentalists and scientific organizations during his tenure, said, "The EPA is faced with many more challenges than it has available resources, so for those who want to be critical that this issue or that issue has not been addressed, there's fair criticism. For those who want to see that progress has continued to be made to address the myriad issues of our nation, there's also much to celebrate."

For its part, the EPA said in a statement, "We appreciate the candid interviews conducted by the Science Advisory Board. ... We look forward to reviewing the recommendations in the report when the SAB formally submits it to EPA for discussion. In the meantime, we will continue to examine and enhance our science efforts agency wide."

The investigators will hold a public meeting in September to discuss their findings, and will later issue a formal paper with recommendations for changes throughout the agency.

Meanwhile, the committee's work provides a rare look at internal criticism of a major federal agency. "None of the other EPA offices get a chance to try to turn it or twist it," Landis said. "It's from our committee to the administrator."

[RandomGuy]

How may people inhale tar straight to their lungs on an everyday basis, and are fully aware of it being a carcinogen?

Quite a few.

Relevance?

[ElNono]

Quite a few.

Relevance?

That you don't need to be snarky to ask that. And the answer would be 'Quite a few.'

[boutons_deux]

Despite Industry Ties, DOE Fracking Panel Warns of “A Real Risk of Serious Environmental Consequences” Absent Regulation



http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/1...-consequences/

[CosmicCowboy]

That dihydrogen monoxide is some dangerous stuff.

[boutons_deux]

dihydrogen monoxide contaminated with fracking chemicals (so dangerous they are trade secrets) is more dangerous

[Halberto]

You guys should see the flares we have today, I think I saw a 60-foot flare this morning! Drill baby, drill.

[Wild Cobra]

I'll bet refining water will be cheaper than alternative fuels.