Feds Say Major New York Gas Pipeline Poses Safety Risk – ProPublica
August 5, 2011
Feds Say Major New York Gas Pipeline Poses Safety Risk – ProPublica. Aug. 5, 2011
Corps worries that fracking gas wells might hurt dams
August 5, 2011
Corps worries that fracking gas wells might hurt dams
By RANDY LEE LOFTIS
Environmental Writer
Published 31 July 2011 10:50 PM
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers<http://topics.dallasnews.com/topic/Army_Corps_of_Engineers> is concerned that hydraulic fracturing of natural-gas wells near its dams – such as the one at Joe Pool Lake in southwestern Dallas County – could threaten dam safety.
In most of Texas and several other states, the corps has declared a 3,000-foot buffer around its dams and water-control structures within which it will not allow new wells, drilling pads or pipelines.
The corps also has a national team studying potential risks to dam safety from minerals extraction.
“We want to feel confident that our projects are safe,” said Anita Branch, regional technical specialist in geotechnical engineering for the corps’ Fort Worth<http://topics.dallasnews.com/topic/Fort_Worth%2C_Texas> office. “That’s always our No. 1 priority.”
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in which drillers inject millions of gallons of water at extreme pressures to fracture rock and release gas, tops the corps’ list of worries.
The corps wants to know whether increased geological pressures from fracking could cause differential movement, or shifts along natural faults, weakening dam foundations.
“That could precipitate a fairly quick failure if it was not detected in time,” Branch said.
Two less worrisome possibilities are also under review. One is whether extracting large volumes of gas beneath or near a dam might make rock and soil subside.
Another is whether huge amounts of liquid waste from drilling, pumped into disposal wells, can trigger earthquakes.
Questions about dam safety could add another potential complication to shale gas, which has become a major source of natural gas nationwide.
The combination of fracturing and horizontal drilling – running pipe a mile or more from the wellhead to reach the gas – has made possible tens of thousands of new wells, including in North Texas’ Barnett Shale<http://topics.dallasnews.com/topic/Barnett_Shale> region.
At least in the case of dam safety, the corps’ questions suggest there might be little or no research supporting blanket assurances that the practice poses no public risk.
It also shows that the government has been slow to study the potential threat.
New wells have been drilled or permitted within the 3,000-foot zone around Joe Pool Lake’s dam, for example, but only recently has the corps responded to complaints that wells might harm dams.
Federal jurisdiction is limited by the corps’ incomplete ownership of surface title and mineral rights beneath its own reservoirs – decisions made decades ago to save money.
For that reason and others, including the nearly complete lack of scientific research to prove or disprove a risk, any national policy on wells near dams seems far off.
Caution advised
The Texas Railroad Commission<http://topics.dallasnews.com/topic/Texas_Railroad_Commission>, the state’s oil and gas regulator, said the corps had not contacted it about dam safety concerns or told it about a 3,000-foot buffer around corps dams.
Spokeswoman Ramona Nye said in an email the agency was not aware of cases in which oil or gas wells harmed dams.
Texas has no general rule keeping wells a certain distance from dams but would consider a scientifically and factually valid request to do so from the corps, Nye said.
In 2009, the Railroad Commission set a no-drilling buffer zone around an underground gas-storage depot in Jack County, she said.
The American Petroleum Institute<http://topics.dallasnews.com/topic/American_Petroleum_Institute>, the largest U.S. oil and gas trade group and a strong supporter of fracking in natural-gas production, did not respond to a request for comment on the corps’ inquiries.
The organization says on its website that “a comprehensive set of federal, state<http://topics.dallasnews.com/topic/Arkansas_State_University>, and local laws addresses every aspect of exploration and production operations. These include well design, location, spacing, operation, water and waste management and disposal, air emissions, wildlife protection, surface impacts and health and safety.”
A check of institute publications on fracking did not turn up discussions of dam safety.
Two dam safety experts said they believe the corps is asking valid questions.
Bruce Tschantz, professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Tennessee<http://topics.dallasnews.com/topic/The_University_of_Tennessee>, said the lack of scientific research or published studies on fracking’s potential effects on dams justified special care.
Tschantz is also a former White House<http://topics.dallasnews.com/topic/White_House> adviser and the first chief of dam safety at the Federal Emergency Management Agency<http://topics.dallasnews.com/topic/Federal_Emergency_Management_Agency>.
“Until the science involving any short- and long-term relationship between hydraulic fracturing and foundation destabilization, dam safety and reservoir stability is better understood,” he said in an email, “it is my general opinion as a hydraulic engineer that we should approach hydrofracturing in the vicinity of these structures very cautiously.
“This wisdom is especially important for hydrofracturing around high-hazard classes of dams.” A high-hazard dam is one with great potential for loss of life and property in case of a failure. It does not mean that a dam failure is likely.
Stephen Wright<http://topics.dallasnews.com/topic/Stephen_Wright>, professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at the University of Texas<http://topics.dallasnews.com/topic/University_of_Texas>, noted that problems with clay shales have led to at least two dam failures in Texas, although neither resulted in deaths. He said the corps was right to err on the side of safety.
“It seems reasonable that the corps is researching this issue,” Wright said, adding that the search for answers could be long and complex.
“I am pleased that the corps takes the position of placing public safety of paramount importance. I hope everyone would be as conscientious.”
Marc McCord of Dallas, an opponent of fracking, also welcomed the corps’ interest in possible threats to its dams.
However, after talking with corps officials for months about natural-gas wells near Joe Pool Lake’s dam, he said he’s seen little movement toward action by either federal or Texas agencies.
“We have multiple agencies failing to enforce the law and each blaming it on another so that nothing is done to protect the general public from commercial enterprises that seek to profit at citizen expense,” McCord said.
Most of the public dispute over the expansion of natural-gas drilling has been over fracking’s possible water-quality impacts.
The Texas Railroad Commission and the gas industry say there is no documented case of fracking polluting drinking water. Environmentalists dispute that.
In December, the Environmental Protection Agency<http://topics.dallasnews.com/topic/Environmental_Protection_Agency> accused Range Production of polluting drinking-water wells in Parker County. Range denies that its wells are to blame. The company is contesting an EPA order before the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans<http://topics.dallasnews.com/topic/New_Orleans%2C_LA>.
Increased pressures
The corps’ concern with gas wells isn’t over water quality.
“Ours is specifically associated with the safety and integrity of our projects,” said the corps’ Branch. “It’s a different way of looking at it than most folks have done in the past.”
Fracking usually takes place thousands of feet underground, so deep that many experts say it can have little or no effect near the surface.
But corps experts have envisioned a scenario in which naturally occurring faults might transfer the high-pressure force of fracking upward toward a dam’s foundation.
“They’re basically changing the stress state of the existing geology,” Branch said. “You’ve got the geology as it exists today, and they’re going in and changing that by increasing the pressures that are in that.
“And those increased pressures are associated with those high pressures used as part of the hydrofracturing process.”
The weight of a reservoir’s water also applies great pressure to the earth, but in a uniform load rather than the concentrated force of fracking, Branch said.
“The fracture pressures they’re using are in the neighborhood of 8,000 pounds per square inch, and that’s a much more significant load than you get from the weight of the pool,” she said.
Potential damage to a dam from differential movement of the earth shifting along a fault would probably be gradual, allowing repairs as it happens, Branch said. But it could be quick, posing immediate risks, she added.
“We know that based on experiences elsewhere, these are concerns that have been noted,” Branch said. “That’s why we want to make sure that we fully understand the mechanisms that are developed so we can develop appropriate policy to address those.”Finding those answers will be complicated because every dam has different local geology. The variations may be great enough to prevent the adoption of a national buffer zone to cover all federal dams.
The 3,000-foot buffer that Brig. Gen. Thomas Kula, commander of the corps’ Southwestern Division, ordered March 17 is not impermeable. It does not prevent wells on land where the corps did not obtain ownership or mineral rights when it built a dam and reservoir.
No current law or rule lets the corps ban all drilling on land it does not control through ownership or mineral rights, Kula noted in his order.
Kula ordered corps offices in his division to examine oil and gas projects within 3,000 feet of a corps dam or water-control structure. Regardless of ownership, if the agency determines that a well would endanger dam safety, it can take legal action.
Kula’s order covers corps operations in all or parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana<http://topics.dallasnews.com/topic/Louisiana>, Arkansas, Kansas and Missouri.
McCord, the Dallas environmentalist who has pressed the corps to take a tougher stance on wells near its dams, said corps officials told him some companies had complied voluntarily with the 3,000-foot buffer zone, but others had not.
“This leads me to wonder why no governmental agency is doing its job in regulating the oil and gas industry by forcing compliance with legal restrictions on their operations,” he said.
Perfectly safe? Apparently not – Times Union
August 5, 2011
Perfectly safe? Apparently not – Times Union. Aug. 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.
###
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
100+ Groups from 23 States File Petition for Drilling and Fracking Chemical Testing, Info
August 4, 2011
Click to access fracking_petition.pdf
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 4, 2011
CONTACT:
Kathleen Sutcliffe, Earthjustice, (202) 667-4500, ext.235
Richard Denison, Environmental Defense Fund, (202) 387-3500
Roberta Winters, League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania (610) 527-3706
John Fenton, Pavilion Area Concerned Citizens, (307) 856-7098
100+ Groups from 23 States File Petition for Drilling and Fracking Chemical Testing, Info
Concerned about health impacts of drilling boom, groups press for answers from Halliburton and others
WASHINGTON, DC – A large coalition of public health, environmental, and good government groups filed a petition (PDF) today demanding that full health and safety information be made available for all of the chemicals used in oil and gas development, including the controversial process known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” Fracking is when oil and gas companies blast millions of gallons of water treated with chemicals into the ground to force oil and gas from hard-to-reach places deep inside the earth. Along with a fracking-fueled gas rush have come troubling reports of poisoned drinking water, polluted air, mysterious animal deaths, and sick families.
“The more information we have about the chemicals used in fracking and drilling, the easier it will be to keep people safe and healthy,” said Earthjustice Associate Attorney Megan Klein. “But EPA needs to move quickly – we learn of new problems related to this industry almost daily.”
Earthjustice filed the petition on behalf of Environmental Defense Fund, The League of Women Voters and more than 100 other groups from across America including those with national membership and others with membership from among 23 states (list). The petition asks the EPA to draft rules that — for the first time — would require manufacturers and processors of drilling and fracking chemicals to conduct testing and produce health and safety data needed to evaluate the health and environmental risks of their substances and mixtures.
“The complications linked to the chemicals used in oil and gas development are emblematic of a larger problem in this country — in which we allow dangerous or untested chemicals to be used in everyday consumer products and, in this case, mixed with water and pumped underground,” said Richard Denison, Senior Scientist with Environmental Defense Fund. “Ultimately, the goal of this petition is to encourage companies to do the right thing. If health impacts associated with their products are widely known, it will serve as a powerful incentive for companies to act more responsibly.”
Little is known about many of the chemicals used in drilling and fracking. What information is available is sobering: 78 percent of known fracking chemicals are associated with serious short-term health effects such as burning eyes, rashes, asthma-like effects, nausea, vomiting, headaches, dizziness, tremors, and convulsions. Between 22 and 47 percent of those chemicals also are associated with longer-term health effects, including cancer, organ damage, and harm to the endocrine system.
“People are understandably concerned about the potential health impacts posed by fracking. Here in Pennsylvania and across the region, as the pace of drilling has skyrocketed, so too have reports of illness and pollution,” said Roberta Winters of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania. “The League of Women Voters is deeply concerned about this national issue that threatens the environment and public health. The state Leagues of New York and Pennsylvania are working hard to educate the public about the environmental, public health, and economic impacts associated with fracking. As we continue to advocate for public participation and transparency, we encourage citizens to make their voices heard to regain necessary environmental protections. Our nation’s leaders are on notice that our organization, and more than a hundred others nationwide are pressing for swift action on this petition.”
The petition also asks the EPA to require Halliburton and 8 other fracking chemical companies to provide any documentation these companies have of environmental or health problems associated with the chemicals they manufacture, process, or distribute.
“Here in Pavilion, we’re surrounded by fracked gas wells. The EPA told us over a year ago not to use our well water anymore for drinking or cooking,” said John Fenton of Pavilion (WY) Area Concerned Citizens. “The way the rules work right now, it’s easy for companies to sidestep responsibility. I don’t think we should stand for it any longer, which is why I’ve signed onto this petition.”
###
RESOURCES
- The petition filed today can be found at: http://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/fracking_petition.pdf
- A list of groups, organized by state, that signed onto today’s petition can be found at: http://earthjustice.org/documents/reference/xls/fracking-petition-groups
- Study guides on Natural Gas Extraction from Marcellus shale, Pipelines, and Pooling, are available on the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania website: http://palwv.org/issues/MarcellusShale/index.html
__________________________________
Kathleen Sutcliffe
Campaign Manager
Earthjustice
1625 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Suite 702
Washington, DC 20036
T: 202-667-4500, ext 235
F: 202-667-2356
www.earthjustice.org
Kathleen Sutcliffe
Campaign Manager
Earthjustice
1625 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Suite 702
Washington, DC 20036
T: 202-667-4500, ext 235
F: 202-667-2356
www.earthjustice.org
Because the earth needs a good lawyer
Dryden confirms ban on hydraulic fracturing | The Ithaca Journal | theithacajournal.com
August 4, 2011
Dryden confirms ban on hydraulic fracturing | The Ithaca Journal | theithacajournal.com.
Dryden confirms ban on hydraulic fracturing
Calls vote a zoning “clarification”
16 Comments
- Filed Under
- Local News
- News
DRYDEN — Applause erupted from most of the 50 or so residents in attendance when the town board unanimously voted to ban hydraulic fracturing in Dryden.
“I’m overjoyed (by the decision),” said resident Hilary Lambert, a member of the Dryden Resource Awareness Coalition, the group that gathered 1,700 residents’ signatures asking the board to ban hydraulic fracturing in town. “I’m hoping that the example set by the Town of Dryden will be paid attention to by other towns state-wide.”
By Tuesday night’s action, Dryden became the second town in Tompkins County after Ithaca
to ban the gas drilling technique, and at meetings over the past several months, it appeared that at least three quarters of residents in attendance supported a ban. Ulysses, whose residents also circulated a petition asking for a ban, is widely expected to also vote into law its own drilling ban on Aug. 10.
Dryden Supervisor Mary Ann Sumner said that the heavy industry and pollution associated with hydraulic fracturing for naturalgas is at odds with the town’s comprehensive plan and many residents’ way of life.
“Sometimes we’re not able to do things that the majority wants, but this time we can,” she said.
The board’s decision, she said, was not a ban so much as a clarification of existing zoning, which “prohibits all uses which are not expressly permitted,” and does not permit extractive industry, she said.
“It removes any doubt that extractive activities are permitted,” said board member Jason Leifer, who co-authored the legislation.
In addition, the ban will be added only to the current zoning, not the proposed new zoning code that town officials have been working toward completing in coming months, though Leifer said they plan to add the ban to the proposed zoning as well. As with any legislation, board members said in the event that the town decides hydraulic fracturing has become safer, or if citizens elect a new town board, the ban can be overturned.
Sumner and each town board member explained their feelings on the vote, with all stating that they felt a ban was the only way to represent the electorate and keep their consciences clean.
While town officials have said previously that they could face legal action as a result of a blanket ban, Sumner said the recent Draft Generic Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement released by the state Department of Conservation regarding hydraulic fracturing proposes that drilling applications conform to local zoning, which she said reaffirms the town’s ban.
“It’s one more way of hearing from the state that local land use authority may be respected,” she said.
There were a few opponents in attendance, who were displeased by the board’s vote.
“The town board didn’t look at the economic risk of this,” said Henry Kramer, a resident and member of the newly created Dryden Safe Energy Coalition, which supports regulated gas drilling in the area. “They assumed power they didn’t have. This will not end here. There’s the possibility of an appeal, and litigation.”
Resident Ron Szymanski, who is opposed to a blanket ban on gas drilling, said he presented town board members with questions he wanted answered about how drilling would affect the town’s tax base and residents’ right to their mineral rights, and he hasn’t heard back.
“They said ‘we’ll get to it when we can,’ but that’s not acceptable,” he said.
Allegheny Defense Project
August 4, 2011
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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.”
# # #
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
