Gas Fracking - an environmental hazard.

[Guest]

It is been proposed that the process known as hydraulic frackturing to extract gas from shale beds is to be introduced into Ireland.

I am very concerned that this is a danger to the unspoilt environment I live in. I am becoming actively involved in a campaign of resistance.

I have seen GasLand which is an American documentary which highlights how Fracking has blighted whole communities and poisoned vast areas of land. It goes into detail as to how individuals and communities have been bullied by the industry and how the Bush administration removed almost all environmental controls from it.

So far there is only one academic study highlighting the contamination of water wells by escaped Methane. This is not really the major concern though, as the process involves injecting a cocktail of up to 500 chemical, many carcinogens, into the shale bed.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/05/02/1100682108.full.pdf+html?sid=bde16321-e169-437d-a59c-798e7f65c479

I am interested in others opinion of this process.

Br Cornelius

[Goodnite]

If anyone needs any first hand accounts of how this degrades the environment, I can provide them.

[Rosenrot]

I took a class on environmental law. The professor was a practicing lawyer mostly dealing with water rights. We talked about fracking in how it can contaminate water supplies. One story a peer in my class told was how his neighbors had to have water trucked in because fracking had contaminated the groundwater on their property. Fracking is bad news.

[Doug1029]

It is been proposed that the process known as hydraulic frackturing to extract gas from shale beds is to be introduced into Ireland.

I am very concerned that this is a danger to the unspoilt environment I live in. I am becoming actively involved in a campaign of resistance.

I have seen GasLand which is an American documentary which highlights how Fracking has blighted whole communities and poisoned vast areas of land. It goes into detail as to how individuals and communities have been bullied by the industry and how the Bush administration removed almost all environmental controls from it.

Br Cornelius

According to a driller on one of my daughter's wells:

Concrete casings are used to waterproof the well so that hydrocarbons from the producing beds do not contaminate water in strata above. Sometimes the casing is not installed properly and cracks during the fracking process, contaminating the water. The cracking is caused by improper concrete mixes and/or installation. According to the driller: it is not the process that is environmentally unsound; it is the incompetent use of it by people who have no business drilling wells.

If this is true, it would seem that a system of licensing drillers (after appropriate training) and loss of license in the event of a casing fracture, would go a long way toward alleviating the problem, while still allowing the use of the resources. This could be backed up by an on-site monitoring and inspection system.

Doug

[Guest]

According to a driller on one of my daughter's wells:

Concrete casings are used to waterproof the well so that hydrocarbons from the producing beds do not contaminate water in strata above. Sometimes the casing is not installed properly and cracks during the fracking process, contaminating the water. The cracking is caused by improper concrete mixes and/or installation. According to the driller: it is not the process that is environmentally unsound; it is the incompetent use of it by people who have no business drilling wells.

If this is true, it would seem that a system of licensing drillers (after appropriate training) and loss of license in the event of a casing fracture, would go a long way toward alleviating the problem, while still allowing the use of the resources. This could be backed up by an on-site monitoring and inspection system.

Doug

This seems to be an endemic problem to the industry as it is widely reported in all areas. I am not certain that all can be attributed to incompetent operators.

It is noteworthy that the only peer reviewed study (very limited in scope) showed Methane contamination in almost all water wells sampled within a 1km radius of the drilling rig. No Fracking fluids were recorded in the water samples, but given that only 68 wells were sampled this cannot be considered proof of safety.

Br Cornelius

[Verneph]

This seems to be an endemic problem to the industry as it is widely reported in all areas. I am not certain that all can be attributed to incompetent operators.

It is noteworthy that the only peer reviewed study (very limited in scope) showed Methane contamination in almost all water wells sampled within a 1km radius of the drilling rig. No Fracking fluids were recorded in the water samples, but given that only 68 wells were sampled this cannot be considered proof of safety.

Br Cornelius

There has never been a methane contamination in water linked directly to hydraulic fracking. There are a number of ways methane can get into a water supply.

I'm not saying I think fracking is completely safe. I'm saying it's still very unclear how much damage can truly be blamed on fracking. A lot of claims are pure supposition. Mind you, I live in Pennsylvania, the place where they've been fracking. I'm not going to complain until conclusive proof of the apparent dangers of fracking can be shown, other than simple claims and accusations.

[Guest]

There has never been a methane contamination in water linked directly to hydraulic fracking. There are a number of ways methane can get into a water supply.

I'm not saying I think fracking is completely safe. I'm saying it's still very unclear how much damage can truly be blamed on fracking. A lot of claims are pure supposition. Mind you, I live in Pennsylvania, the place where they've been fracking. I'm not going to complain until conclusive proof of the apparent dangers of fracking can be shown, other than simple claims and accusations.

Comment on the Duke paper. I think your certainty is unfounded.

Br Cornelius

[Verneph]

Comment on the Duke paper. I think your certainty is unfounded.

Br Cornelius

What your link said was that the dangers of fracking are, in a word, 'possible', but not entirely proven and the paper suggested that a full study and analysis be done on the process in action which I can agree with.

Mind you, and I'll stress this again, I'm not saying that we shouldn't be a bit concerned with fracking and look into its risks. My point was that there is no reason to completely condemn fracking until further, more in depth investigation can be done.

[Doug1029]

This seems to be an endemic problem to the industry as it is widely reported in all areas. I am not certain that all can be attributed to incompetent operators.

It is noteworthy that the only peer reviewed study (very limited in scope) showed Methane contamination in almost all water wells sampled within a 1km radius of the drilling rig. No Fracking fluids were recorded in the water samples, but given that only 68 wells were sampled this cannot be considered proof of safety.

Br Cornelius

Is that 68 oil/gas wells, or 68 water wells? If it's 68 oil/gas wells, then we have something. But if it's 68 water wells around one oil/gas well, we have zero degrees of freedom and no study to talk about.

Neither can a sample of 68 water wells be considered proof of danger. What we have is a great big question mark. To all intents and purposes, this issue has not been studied.

When I was a kid, we had natural gas in our water well. No fracking involved, just naturally occurring gas. There wasn't a lot, but it was enough to destroy the prime on a jet pump which meant that we had to open a valve and bleed off the gas every day. The valve was in the bottom of a four-foot hole with a couple feet of water in it, which in winter, meant breaking the ice and reaching into the water to open the valve. The gas was more of a nuisance than anything else. So I am wondering just how dangerous natural gas in water is.

Doug

[Guest]

Is that 68 oil/gas wells, or 68 water wells? If it's 68 oil/gas wells, then we have something. But if it's 68 water wells around one oil/gas well, we have zero degrees of freedom and no study to talk about.

Neither can a sample of 68 water wells be considered proof of danger. What we have is a great big question mark. To all intents and purposes, this issue has not been studied.

When I was a kid, we had natural gas in our water well. No fracking involved, just naturally occurring gas. There wasn't a lot, but it was enough to destroy the prime on a jet pump which meant that we had to open a valve and bleed off the gas every day. The valve was in the bottom of a four-foot hole with a couple feet of water in it, which in winter, meant breaking the ice and reaching into the water to open the valve. The gas was more of a nuisance than anything else. So I am wondering just how dangerous natural gas in water is.

Doug

I supplied a link to the paper - make your own mind up about it. It does refer to 68 water wells and as such can only be considered a preliminary study pointing to a potential problem. However the study was undertaken on the back of widespread reports of Methane contamination of water wells post fracking operations (problems which were absent before fracking so definitely not natural occurrences).

The issue here is that the EPA had their hands tied on this one by a Bush administration executive order - and as a consequence they have not undertaken the necessary safety studies which should have been under their control. It seems more than a little Fishy that Halliberton developed the technology - and then an ex-Haliberton exec pushed through an exemption to the Clean Water Act for all Fracking operations. The judicial arm of the Government is only now forcing the EPA to take its water protection duties seriously.

So I would agree with you that the data is certainly not decisive, but it has been deliberately hobbled by Gas industry lobbyists.

Br Cornelius

Edited June 29, 2011 by Guest

[Goodnite]

http://www.wjactv.com/news/23792353/detail.html

This incident happened within sight of my cabin. Our spring was contaminated and waste water released into a pristine native brook trout fishery.

[Doug1029]

http://www.wjactv.com/news/23792353/detail.html

This incident happened within sight of my cabin. Our spring was contaminated and waste water released into a pristine native brook trout fishery.

A similar thing happened to my pond when they drilled the well on my neighbor's property. I don't think it was fracking, but roughnecks aren't very careful with their waste water sometimes.

Doug

Blowouts may be "very rare" but we had one here in OK this spring. It even caught fire. Lots of investigations going on.

Do you know if Horizon is supplying well services in your area. They have some wells in PA, but I don't know just where.

Doug

Edited June 29, 2011 by Doug1029

[Guest]

http://www.wjactv.com/news/23792353/detail.html

This incident happened within sight of my cabin. Our spring was contaminated and waste water released into a pristine native brook trout fishery.

The contamination you mention is specifically denied in the report you listed - but I suspect spills are not uncommon around these wells.

Br Cornelius

Edited June 29, 2011 by Guest

[FurthurBB]

It is been proposed that the process known as hydraulic frackturing to extract gas from shale beds is to be introduced into Ireland.

I am very concerned that this is a danger to the unspoilt environment I live in. I am becoming actively involved in a campaign of resistance.

I have seen GasLand which is an American documentary which highlights how Fracking has blighted whole communities and poisoned vast areas of land. It goes into detail as to how individuals and communities have been bullied by the industry and how the Bush administration removed almost all environmental controls from it.

So far there is only one academic study highlighting the contamination of water wells by escaped Methane. This is not really the major concern though, as the process involves injecting a cocktail of up to 500 chemical, many carcinogens, into the shale bed.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/05/02/1100682108.full.pdf+html?sid=bde16321-e169-437d-a59c-798e7f65c479

I am interested in others opinion of this process.

Br Cornelius

I think the fact that you put in more water than you get out in oil should be the biggest hint that this is not a good idea. Even if it didn't tear whole mountains down or poison people.

[Ashotep]

I would be against it. It could poison your water supply forever. We can probably survive without gas but not without fresh water. It seems like more and more people all over the world is having to drink contaminated water and its making them sick or killing them.

[Doug1029]

We can probably survive without gas but not without fresh water. It seems like more and more people all over the world is having to drink contaminated water and its making them sick or killing them.

Good point. Denver and other parts of the Front Range are going to try living without water in about 20 to 30 years. Not really, but they won't have enough water to supply the population. There are banks now writing 30-year mortgages in that area for houses that won't have a water supply when current water owners exert their prior rights. Does anybody else see a problem looming? It's called due diligence: Home National Bank just went belly up for the same reason.

Doug

[Guest]

A little bit of digging seems to support the assertion that the fracking process itself poses little direct threat to the aquifers themselves, but surface spills and engineering issues with the well casing are the major source of concern. These tend to be very localised and fit the pattern of what people are reporting as regards contamination of wells and streams.

I would like to see some Health and Safety data as to the extent of operational problems on the ground - as without it it is very difficult to judge the actual risks per well head.

Br Cornelius

[Rafterman]

This is a huge issue in Upstate New York right now.

My personal opinion - fracking is no more or less safe than any other energy production activity, accidents will happen. And just like in every industry, there needs to be regulation and oversight from state and federal officials.

I would warn the anti-frackers, however, that they need to be more thoughtful with their opposition as, at least in this area, they are souding more and more like kook conspiracy types than members of a thoughtful opposition.

[Guest]

This is a huge issue in Upstate New York right now.

My personal opinion - fracking is no more or less safe than any other energy production activity, accidents will happen. And just like in every industry, there needs to be regulation and oversight from state and federal officials.

I would warn the anti-frackers, however, that they need to be more thoughtful with their opposition as, at least in this area, they are souding more and more like kook conspiracy types than members of a thoughtful opposition.

Indeed the fringe elements are threatening to kill any campaign before its starts.

Br Cornelius