Perfectly safe? Apparently not – Times Union
August 5, 2011
Pipe Dreams | Food & Water Watch
August 5, 2011
Pipe Dreams | Food & Water Watch.
Pipe Dreams: What the Gas Industry Doesn’t Want you to Know about Fracking and U.S. Energy Independence is available here:
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/briefs/pipe-dreams/
August 4, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Kate Fried, Food & Water Watch, (202) 683-4905
Eric Weltman, Food & Water Watch, (718) 943-9085
Shaky U.S. Economy Won’t Benefit from Natural Gas Expansion
Food & Water Watch Analysis Reveals Industry Plans to Send Fracked
Gas and Profits Overseas
Washington, D.C.—As the federal government prepares to gut key programs to protect water and other natural resources through this week’s debt agreement, the Department of Energy (DOE) has announced plans to invest $12.4 million on programs to support shale gas development. Yet new analysis released today by the national consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch casts additional doubt on the benefits of natural gas obtained through hydraulic fracturing. Pipe Dreams: What the Gas Industry Doesn’t Want you to Know about Fracking and U.S. Energy Independence shows that gas leases are not only generating less energy than once forecast, but also a significant portion of U.S. fracked gas will be exported overseas and the industry’s revenues will benefit foreign economies.
According to recent trade publication accounts, DOE will invest $1.6 million, outspending General Electric 4 to 1, on a project designed to remove radioactive material from wastewater from fracking operations in New York State. It will spend additional funds on projects to improve natural gas well performance in Colorado, Texas, California and New Mexico.
In July, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo lifted a moratorium on fracking, and the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation has recommended opening up 85 percent of the Marcellus Shale in New York to gas fracking. A coalition of 49 groups has come out in support of a ban on fracking in New York.
“This new analysis provides further evidence that fracking will endanger New York’s water for the benefit of foreign interests and customers,” said Eric Weltman, Food & Water Watch’s senior organizer in New York. “Governor Cuomo needs to read this report, which effectively undermines the natural gas industry’s claims that fracking will promote energy independence.”
While U.S. natural gas consumption is actually expected to decline through 2015, it is expected to increase overseas—as much as 44 percent by 2035, with China and India leading that demand. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities once conceptualized for importing gas are now being converted to export terminals to feed the Chinese and Indian markets; Chesapeake Energy is exploring selling some of its natural gas to the India-based Cheniere Energy. Included in this plan is a liquefaction plant in the Gulf of Mexico. Natural gas from the U.S. is attractive to foreign markets because it is less expensive than that from Asia.
As U.S. companies sell or lease their own holdings, many international players are increasing their share of the U.S. natural gas market:
• Reliance Industries (India): In 2010 announced the purchase of a 40 percent stake in Atlas Energy’s Marcellus Shale operation for $1.7 billion; also acquired a 45 percent stake in Eagle Ford shale from Pioneer Natural Resources for $1.36 billion, including $210 million to Pioneer’s other partner Newpek LLC, a subsidiary of Mexican company ALFA SAB de CV.
• China National Offshore Oil Corp (China, government-owned): Agreed to pay $2.2 billion for access to a shale play in south Texas in October 2010; agreed to pay $570 million in cash for a third of Chesapeake’s Niobrara shale basin in Colorado and Wyoming in January 2011.
• BP (United Kingdom): In 2008, invested more than $3.6 billion in U.S. shale, including $1.9 billion for 25 percent of Chesapeake’s Fayetteville shale operations and $1.75 billion for all of Chesapeake’s Woodford Shale operations in Oklahoma.
• Royal Dutch Shell (Netherlands): Paid $4.7 billion for East Resources and its Marcellus Shale assets in 2010.
After rising and falling in 2008, natural gas prices plateaued in 2010 and have remained steady since. Moreover, many gas wells are producing less gas than once expected, and some U.S.-based companies such as Chesapeake Energy have resorted to selling the land their wells are situated on as a means of generating revenues.
Further adding to doubts of the natural gas industry’s ability to generate ample energy, news surfaced earlier this week that the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating the accuracy of the industry’s claims regarding the performance of shale gas wells.
Pipe Dreams: What the Gas Industry Doesn’t Want you to Know about Fracking and U.S. Energy Independence is available here: August 4, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Kate Fried, Food & Water Watch, (202) 683-4905
Eric Weltman, Food & Water Watch, (718) 943-9085
Shaky U.S. Economy Won’t Benefit from Natural Gas Expansion
Food & Water Watch Analysis Reveals Industry Plans to Send Fracked
Gas and Profits Overseas
Washington, D.C.—As the federal government prepares to gut key programs to protect water and other natural resources through this week’s debt agreement, the Department of Energy (DOE) has announced plans to invest $12.4 million on programs to support shale gas development. Yet new analysis released today by the national consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch casts additional doubt on the benefits of natural gas obtained through hydraulic fracturing. Pipe Dreams: What the Gas Industry Doesn’t Want you to Know about Fracking and U.S. Energy Independence shows that gas leases are not only generating less energy than once forecast, but also a significant portion of U.S. fracked gas will be exported overseas and the industry’s revenues will benefit foreign economies.
According to recent trade publication accounts, DOE will invest $1.6 million, outspending General Electric 4 to 1, on a project designed to remove radioactive material from wastewater from fracking operations in New York State. It will spend additional funds on projects to improve natural gas well performance in Colorado, Texas, California and New Mexico.
In July, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo lifted a moratorium on fracking, and the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation has recommended opening up 85 percent of the Marcellus Shale in New York to gas fracking. A coalition of 49 groups has come out in support of a ban on fracking in New York.
“This new analysis provides further evidence that fracking will endanger New York’s water for the benefit of foreign interests and customers,” said Eric Weltman, Food & Water Watch’s senior organizer in New York. “Governor Cuomo needs to read this report, which effectively undermines the natural gas industry’s claims that fracking will promote energy independence.”
While U.S. natural gas consumption is actually expected to decline through 2015, it is expected to increase overseas—as much as 44 percent by 2035, with China and India leading that demand. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities once conceptualized for importing gas are now being converted to export terminals to feed the Chinese and Indian markets; Chesapeake Energy is exploring selling some of its natural gas to the India-based Cheniere Energy. Included in this plan is a liquefaction plant in the Gulf of Mexico. Natural gas from the U.S. is attractive to foreign markets because it is less expensive than that from Asia.
As U.S. companies sell or lease their own holdings, many international players are increasing their share of the U.S. natural gas market:
• Reliance Industries (India): In 2010 announced the purchase of a 40 percent stake in Atlas Energy’s Marcellus Shale operation for $1.7 billion; also acquired a 45 percent stake in Eagle Ford shale from Pioneer Natural Resources for $1.36 billion, including $210 million to Pioneer’s other partner Newpek LLC, a subsidiary of Mexican company ALFA SAB de CV.
• China National Offshore Oil Corp (China, government-owned): Agreed to pay $2.2 billion for access to a shale play in south Texas in October 2010; agreed to pay $570 million in cash for a third of Chesapeake’s Niobrara shale basin in Colorado and Wyoming in January 2011.
• BP (United Kingdom): In 2008, invested more than $3.6 billion in U.S. shale, including $1.9 billion for 25 percent of Chesapeake’s Fayetteville shale operations and $1.75 billion for all of Chesapeake’s Woodford Shale operations in Oklahoma.
• Royal Dutch Shell (Netherlands): Paid $4.7 billion for East Resources and its Marcellus Shale assets in 2010.
After rising and falling in 2008, natural gas prices plateaued in 2010 and have remained steady since. Moreover, many gas wells are producing less gas than once expected, and some U.S.-based companies such as Chesapeake Energy have resorted to selling the land their wells are situated on as a means of generating revenues.
Further adding to doubts of the natural gas industry’s ability to generate ample energy, news surfaced earlier this week that the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating the accuracy of the industry’s claims regarding the performance of shale gas wells.
Pipe Dreams: What the Gas Industry Doesn’t Want you to Know about Fracking and U.S. Energy Independence is available here: http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/briefs/pipe-dreams/
Food & Water Watch works to ensure the food, water and fish we consume is safe, accessible and sustainable. So we can all enjoy and trust in what we eat and drink, we help people take charge of where their food comes from, keep clean, affordable, public tap water flowing freely to our homes, protect the environmental quality of oceans, force government to do its job protecting citizens, and educate about the importance of keeping shared resources under public control.
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August 4th, 2011
Pipe Dreams: What the Gas Industry Doesn’t Want you to Know about Fracking and U.S. Energy Independence
Download the 
PDF File
EPA Report: Fracking Contaminated Drinking Water | Environmental Working Group
August 4, 2011
EPA Report: Fracking Contaminated Drinking Water | Environmental Working Group.
EPA Report: Fracking Contaminated Drinking Water
Washington, D.C. – Contrary to the drilling industry claim that hydraulic fracturing has never contaminated groundwater, the Environmental Protection Agency concluded in a 1987 study that “fracking” of a natural gas well in West Virginia contaminated an underground drinking water source. That all-but-forgotten report to Congress, uncovered by Environmental Working Group and Earthjustice, found that fracturing gel from a shale gas well more than 4,000 feet deep had contaminated well water.
EPA investigators concluded that the contamination was “illustrative” of a broader problem of pollution associated with hydraulic fracturing but said the agency’s investigation was hampered by confidentiality agreements between industry and affected landowners. Environmental Working Group’s year-long investigation of the incident found that several abandoned natural gas wells located near the fractured well in West Virginia could have served as conduits that allowed the gel, a common ingredient in fracking fluid, to migrate into the water well.
“When you add up the gel in the water, the presence of abandoned wells and the documented ability of drilling fluids to migrate through these wells into underground water supplies, there is a lot of evidence that EPA got it right and that this was indeed a case of hydraulic fracturing contamination of groundwater,” said Dusty Horwitt, EWG’s senior oil and gas analyst and author of “Cracks in the Façade,” EWG’s report about EPA’s finding. “Now it’s up to EPA to pick up where it left off 25 years ago and determine the true risks of fracking so that our drinking water can be protected.”
Since the 1987 report, the industry has hydraulically fractured hundreds of thousands of wells and is continuing a historic push into natural gas-bearing shale formations, once considered inaccessible, that lie beneath populated areas in a number of states, including West Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Louisiana and Arkansas.
To access these formations, drillers often use a relatively new combination of horizontal drilling and higher-volume fracturing. As drilling activity has intensified, reports of pollution have sparked a growing national debate over the actual or potential environmental risks, including contamination of groundwater, the source of drinking water for more than 100 million Americans, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Congress exempted hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act in 2005 following an EPA study of hydraulic fracturing the previous year which found little risk to water supplies when fracturing is conducted in coal bed methane deposits. Neither Congress nor the EPA mentioned the agency’s 1987 finding. EPA is currently conducting a new study of fracking’s impact on water supplies.
“During the fracturing process,” EPA investigators wrote in the 1987 report, which focused on the handling of natural gas, oil and geothermal wastes generally, “fractures can be produced, allowing migration of native brine, fracturing fluid and hydrocarbons from the oil or gas well to a nearby water well. When this happens, the water well can be permanently damaged and a new well must be drilled or an alternative source of drinking water found.”
Environmental Working Group found that the evidence in the West Virginia case was consistent with pollution from hydraulic fracturing, though it is possible that another stage of the drilling process caused the problem.
In the EPA’s files in Washington, EWG also discovered a document submitted in 1987 by the American Petroleum Institute, the natural gas and oil industry’s major trade association, that appeared to agree with the EPA finding but suggested that it was not typical. “One case,” the API wrote, referring to the West Virginia contamination case, “resulted in a workover operation fracturing into groundwater as a result of equipment failure or accident. As described in the detail write-up, this is not a normal result of fracturing as it ruins the productive capability of the wells.”
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EWG is a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, DC that uses the power of information to protect human health and the environment. http://www.ewg.org
Follow EWG’s natural resources work on Twitter @EWGfracking
Auburn waste editorial
August 2, 2011
Auburn waste editorial,
Published: Tuesday, August 02, 2011, 5:00 AM
Editorial overlooked facts on Auburn waste
To the Editor:
Is the erosion of the fourth estate at hand? One would expect hyperbole and condescension from cable news pundits, but newspapers, the last bastion of credibility, are they too caving into the economic pressures of the current news climate? My cause for concern is the July 25 editorial, “Money-Loser: Wastewater ban will cost Auburn’s ratepayers next year.”
The tone of the piece was drenched with derision and offered little to no facts. A fact that was glaringly overlooked was that Municipal Utilities Director Vicki Murphy asked the natural gas companies to stop delivering because pre-treatment testing showed that pollutant levels were out of compliance with the permits. So the fiscally responsible members of Auburn City Council, namely Mayor Michael Quill and Councilors Gilda Brower and Thomas McNabb, wanted to be prudent in not budgeting money from this tenuous revenue stream. They knew the money would not be there.
The $600,000 figure is an arbitrary figure used by Councilor Matt Smith for political gain. There is no sound, documented evidence that the 2011-2012 budget should have included that figure, given the fact that the companies were out of compliance in the previous fiscal quarter.
So that leaves us with the question: Why did the editorial board slam a small group of native Auburnians trying to protect their downstream neighbors from the contaminants in gas drilling wastewater? Perhaps it was easier to listen to an angry, uniformed, opportunistic politician than to research and look at the documented facts.
Terry Cuddy
Auburn
Original Editorial
Jul 25, 2011 … Auburn rocks! The council sure struck a blow against hydrofracking, … from natural gas wells at the municipal sewage treatment plant?
http://blog.syracuse.com/opinion/2011/07/money-loser_wastewater_ban_wil.html
Original July 7 report http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/07/auburn_votes_to_ban_accepting.html
Niagara Falls Reporter: Frack, Frack, Everywhere a Frack
August 1, 2011
Niagara Falls Reporter: Frack, Frack, Everywhere a Frack.
Fragments of these concerns are all over the internet.
Potential Nightmare in Niagara Falls
This story by reporter James Hufnagel broke yesterday in Niagara Falls.
The story claims to confirm long-rumored financial intentions of Senator Maziarz and Niagara Water Board Director Paul Drof to receive millions of gallons of hydro fracture waste at the small and decrepit Niagara Falls Treatment Plant. There were also prior rumors of intention to truck the waste to Lewiston. Beyond the general science incapability I have listed below, please consider the profoundly dilapidated infrastructure condition of the entire Niagara Falls region. Collapsed and wide open storm sewers (lacking grates) are a common feature on city streets. The entire industrial sector of the 1970’s Robert Moses Parkway including the Waste Treatment Plant is a collapsing corroded mess. Concise scientific concerns related to Mr. Drof’s ambitions continue after we discuss ongoing concerns for Buffalo…..
Continuing Hydro Fracture Abuse in Buffalo?
I remain concerned that Hydro Fracture waste is continuing to be recieved at the Buffalo Sewer Authority…..semantically re-labeled as “Flowback Water” or “Condensate Riser Water” The BSA is abusing prior reception of these fluids for decades from conventional rotary drilled gas well sites. Science has clearly identified that Flowback and Condensate Riser Water from vertical and horizontal hydro fractured wells is comprehensively different and horribly contaminated. Please reference the ‘Comments’ section of this Artvoice article: http://artvoice.com/issues/v10n11/week_in_review/comforting_comerford
The comments contains a Buffalo News digital soundbite from Mayor Brown specifically stating that the BSA is continuing to recieve these liquids from hydro fracture sites
The Impossibility of the Promised Science
Citing Conrad Voltz’ past study at the Josephine Treatment Plant on Blacklick Creek in Pennsylvania, and recalling that Walter Hang had researched contamination in the Niagara River years ago, I wrote to Walter last week. Historically, Walter sampled the Niagara Falls treatment plant’s effluent discharge at the tailrace and conducted GC/MS analysis for priority pollutants. Those findings were presented in his study of the Niagara River, past featured on CBS 60-Minutes.
The Mass Spectrometry Myth……Clumsy Identification of Contaminants
Rumors are circulating that Paul Drof has stated he can identify all of the undisclosed ‘proprietary’ Haliburton chemistry using Mass Spectrometry (MS) which is essentially a technique for ‘weighing’ molecular structure based on the ionic mass-to-charge ratio of a particle. This inherently creates a Chicken-And-Egg debacle as the ionic charge and/or molecular mass of the ‘proprietary unknowns’ must be guessed. This is why you repeatedly hear the statement “We cannot test unless we know what we are attempting to identify and locate.” This is also why the secret Haliburton mixture is not immediately reverse-engineered and duplicated. Here is 28-pages of beginners tutorial on MS: http://science.widener.edu/svb/massspec/massspec.pdf
Walter Hang writes last week:
“You have to separate the pollutants before you can identify them using MS. There are thousands of compounds that might be present. Isolating them is extremely tricky work.”
The Carbon Myth….Cleaning the Mess
Paul Drof is also rumored to be stating that his Niagara Falls Treatment Plant is special because it is “GAC” or capable of implementing Activated Carbon treatment.
Walter writes again:
“GAC only removes pollutants that are insoluble in water. Many of the gas drilling wastewater pollutants, notably the toxic metals, are soluble in water. That is why they are called Total Dissolved Solids. Those contaminants would pass through a GAC filter.”
“GAC only removes pollutants that are insoluble in water. Many of the gas drilling wastewater pollutants, notably the toxic metals, are soluble in water. That is why they are called Total Dissolved Solids. Those contaminants would pass through a GAC filter.”
Sound Familiar?….. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?ref=us
A 2008 drinking water crisis is documented that affected more than 850,000 residents along the Monongahela River near Pittsburgh. When New York imposed its de facto Marcellus Shale horizontal hydrofracturing moratorium, many firms went to drill in Pennsylvania. Municipal treatment plants were accepting up to 40% of their influent as natural gas drilling wastewater even though they were not equipped to handle that type of waste. So much Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) pollution was discharged in the Monongahela River that the water became unpotable. A 70-mile stretch of the river was impacted.”
Walter’s response continues……
“GAC removes higher molecular weight compounds more effectively than certain common volatile compounds. Those compounds can “break through” the GAC earlier than the higher molecular weight compounds. When that happens, the GAC has to be “recharged.” The more frequently the GAC has to be recharged, the higher the treatment cost.”
“GAC removes higher molecular weight compounds more effectively than certain common volatile compounds. Those compounds can “break through” the GAC earlier than the higher molecular weight compounds. When that happens, the GAC has to be “recharged.” The more frequently the GAC has to be recharged, the higher the treatment cost.”
“For all these reasons, the three categories of pollutants in the gas drilling wastewater are extremely challenging to manage. That is why PA has banned their discharge into POTWs.” ……returning to the nightmare of the Josephine Plant at Blacklick Creek
Blacklick Creek
Here is a summary of the Blacklick Creek Study demonstrating comprehensive failure
Conrad Voltz, Tony Ingraffea, Penn State
Here is an excellent radio article in which Voltz describes pressure to remain silent.
Buffalo News and Sen. Maziarz speaking to the Niagara Falls treatment initiative
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GDACC 
