Hydraulic Fracturing and You

Hydrofracking: What is it? Horizontally drilled wells into shale deposits to free natural gas. Injection of water, sand and chemicals causes the shale to crack. Sand keeps the fissures open so the gas can flow up and be captured.

Where are the shale deposits in the USA?

The Marcellus Shale

The Marcellus Shale, is a shale deposit that occurs beneath much of Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York with small areas in Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia.

Marcellus Shale wells drilled in Pennsylvania per calendar year

2007
2008

27
161

2009
2010

785
1386

Data from: Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

Why do it?
Free US from dependency on foreign fuel. Close to high use populations in the eastern USA. Cleaner source of fuel. Create jobs. Landowners can lease their land and/or collect royalties. Possible tax revenue from drilling corporations.

The Environmental Impact

New pipelines and new holding facilities must be built to transport the gas. (possible safety issue.) Clearing of land for wells, piping, holding facilities, roads. Wells are spaced close together. Normally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORMS) in geological formations. Accidental spills of produced water, diesel fuel, fracking chemicals and salt. Well blowouts. Millions of gallons of fresh water must be used to extract the gas.

Clearing of land for wells, piping, holding facilities, roads

New pipelines and new holding facilities must be built to transport the gas. (possible safety issue.)

Damage to roads by trucks going to the site.

Well spacing

The Environmental Impact (contd)

Accidental spills of produced water, diesel fuel, fracking chemicals and salt. November 22, 2010
XTO Energy, a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil, is under investigation by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) after a 13,000 gallon hydraulic fracturing fluid spill at XTO Energy's natural gas drilling site in Penn Township, Lycoming County, PA. The spill was first discovered last week by a DEP inspector who found a valve had been left open on a 21,000-gallon fracking fluid tank, discharging fluid off the well pad into local waterways, threatening a nearby cattle herd that had to be fenced off from the contaminated pasture. Exxon/XTO has not provided an explanation on why the valve was left open.

Fernow Experimental Forest West Virginia

Feb. 25, 2010 In the summer of 2007, a National Park Service publication states, a pipeline was installed and a right of way was cleared after confirming the presence of gas. Researchers using the area predicted damage as a result of the clearing and construction of the project. It was what they did not predict that surprised researchers. Researchers attributed damage from drilling and hydrofracking fluids to the felling or killing of about 1,000 trees. Land application of some of the wastewater also browned nearby vegetation. Frank Gilliam, a plant ecologist and professor at Marshall University, said the tract of land has now been altered and compromises a section of the Fernow Experimental Forest for use as a control.Well, thats now being altered by the existence of the well, Gilliam said. So, the data we collect is going to be less reliable. Its like an archive. This watershed is an ecological archive. The way things would be if we didnt alter anything, now that is being altered by the well.There was no major accident at the well site. The effects described by the National Parks study were the result of a standard drilling operation, Gilliam said .The high salinity of the wastewater, Gilliam said, has heavily affected plants in the region. Its heavily laden with sodium chloride, basically salt, Gilliam said. They are finding a very substantial and notable increase in sodium ions and chloride ions in the water and the soil.

The damage that can be caused to a stream was more evident at Dunkard Creek in September 2009. It is not currently evident whether coal mine discharges, fracking fluid or some other factor caused the mass death of fish along 43 miles of stream near the West Virginia-Pennsylvania border. Dr. Tom Jones, an environmental scientist at Marshall University, explained that frack fluids introduced into an ecosystem, through underground fractures, spills or runoff, could cause similar damage. Used fracking fluid can contain up to 20 percent salt water, much higher than even levels of seawater, Jones said. When you are drilling and injecting this fluid under high pressure, if there is a natural crack present, some of that fluid passes along those natural fractures, Jones said. Where those come back to the surface may or may not be direct route.The increased salinity of the water makes an environment in which golden algae blooms can occur. Golden algae, a plant typically found in the Gulf states, was found to be the cause of the massive fish kills.This algae, as its losing nutrients, has a trick to get new nutrients, Jones said. It actually produces a toxin, a really powerful one. It kills everything in the water with it. It kills fish, mussels, salamanders, anything in the water basically dies. The algae is common in states, such as Texas, where natural gas and oil industry has been developed. Some of the golden algae, Jones said, was even found in Paint Creek, a tributary of the Kana-wha River. If it were to reach a major water system and spread, the effects could be devastating.The increased toxins make the water unbearable, Jones said. At Dunkard Creek, salamanders crawled onto rocks and died in the sun to escape the water. It was a near complete loss of more than 30 miles of stream, which is pretty significant, he said.

Dimmock, PA
September 22, 2009 Pennsylvania environment officials are racing to clean up as much as 8,000 gallons of dangerous drilling fluids after a series of spills at a natural gas production site near the town of Dimock last week. The spills, which occurred at a well site run by Cabot Oil and Gas, involve a compound manufactured by Halliburton that is described as a "potential carcinogen" and is used in the drilling process of hydraulic fracturing, according to state officials. The contaminants have seeped into a nearby creek, where a fish kill was reported by the state Department of Environmental Protection. The DEP also reported fish "swimming erratically."

Dimmock, PA (contd)
Last winter, drinking water in several area homes was found to contain metals and methane gas that state officials determined leaked underground from Cabot wells. And in the spring, the company was fined for several other spills, including an 800-gallon diesel spill from a truck that overturned.

Residents of Dimmock Township, Susquehanna County, who have had their drinking water supplies contaminated by natural gas will each receive a share of $4.1 million that Cabot Oil and Gas Co. will pay under a settlement negotiated by the Department of Environmental Protection and the company.

Bradford County, PA
April 2010 The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has fined Talisman Energy USA Inc. of Horseheads $15,506 for a spill of used natural gas drilling fluids last November at its Klein gas well pad in Armenia Township, Bradford County, that polluted a small, unnamed waterway. The spill involved hydraulic fracturing flowback fluid, which is the substance that returns to the surface after a company injects the pressurized fluid underground to fracture, or "frack," a geologic formation and extract natural gas. "DEP's investigation in late November 2009 determined that Talisman spilled between 4,200 to 6,300 gallons of fracking flowback fluids when a pump failed and sand collected in a valve," DEP North-Central Oil and Gas Program Manager Jennifer Means said in a prepared release. The fluids flowed off the well pad and toward a wetland. A small amount of the fluid ultimately discharged to an unnamed tributary to Webier Creek, which drains into the upper reaches of the Tioga River, a cold water fishery.

Doddridge County, West Virginia

West Virginia regulators arent saying exactly what happened, but environmentalists are growing increasingly concerned about a large spill of fracking fluid from a gas drilling operation in Doddridge County. The incident in question apparently occurred in late August along Buckeye Run, between West Union and Salem. The stream is a tributary of Middle Island Creek, and the drilling operation run by West Union-based TAPO under a permit issued by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. Well, its now more than a month later. And when I talked to James Martin, chief of the DEP Office of Oil and Gas, on Friday, he said his agency still cant say exactly what transpired. But, between 50 and 70 barrels of what a DEP inspector called the contaminate has been cleaned out of Buckeye Creek. Martin told me the material is consistent with what you would find in drilling pit fluids, the toxic wastes leftover from gas drilling, especially in the Marcellus Shale formation thats all the rage with the gas industry.

Washington County,PA
Another Pennsylvania Marcellus shale gas driller has come under fire for violating state environmental laws. According to the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Atlas Resources LLC has been fined $97,350 for a spill of hydraulic fracturing fluids into a tributary of a creek called Dunkle Run. The Atlas Resources incident is just one of many that have been perpetrated by gas drillers performing fracking operations in Pennsylvanias Marcellus shale. According to a report recently released by the Pennsylvania Land Trust Association, the state has identified 1,435 violations by 43 Marcellus Shale drilling companies since January 2008. Of those, 952 were identified as having or likely to have an impact on the environment. That figure doesnt include violations incurred by drilling wastewater haulers. According to the Association, during a 3-day enforcement blitz by the DEP in June 2010, 669 traffic citations and 818 written warnings were issued to trucks hauling Marcellus Shale drilling wastewater. According to a statement from the Pennsylvania DEP, violations were discovered on Dec. 5 and 6, 2009, at the Cowden 17 gas well on Old Trail Road off Route 844. Once the unknown quantity of fluid overflowed the impoundments banks, it ran over the ground and into a tributary of Dunkle Run. An unknown quantity of fluid was involved in the spill. Dunkle Run is located in Hopewell Township, Washington County, in the southwest part of the state. The DEP statement characterized the area where the spill occurred as a highquality watershed. Atlas corrected the problem once it was discovered, but failed to report it to DEP, the statement said. This spill violated Pennsylvanias Oil and Gas Act and Solid Waste Management Act, as well as the states Clean Streams Law, the DEP said.

PA and Fracking Wastewater

The natural gas boom gripping parts of the U.S. has a nasty byproduct: wastewater so salty, and so polluted with metals like barium and strontium, most states require drillers to get rid of the stuff by injecting it down shafts thousands of feet deep. Not in Pennsylvania, one of the states at the center of the gas rush. There, the liquid that gushes from gas wells is only partially treated for substances that could be environmentally harmful, then dumped into rivers and streams from which communities get their drinking water. In the two years since the frenzy of activity began in the vast underground rock formation known as the Marcellus Shale, Pennsylvania has been the only state allowing waterways to serve as the primary disposal place for the huge amounts of wastewater produced by a drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. State regulators, initially caught flat-footed, tightened the rules this year for any new water treatment plants, but allowed any existing operations to continue discharging water into rivers. At least 3.6 million barrels of the waste were sent to treatment plants that empty into rivers during the 12 months ending June 30, according to state records. That is enough to cover a square mile with more than 8 1/2 inches of brine.

Produced water discharged to a holding pond in Osage County, Okla.

Holding pond. Unidentified well site.

Millions of gallons of fresh water must be used to extract the gas

Water resources are becoming scarce Agricultural crisis Although food security has been significantly increased in the past thirty years, water withdrawals for irrigation represent 66 % of the total withdrawals and up to 90 % in arid regions, the other 34 % being used by domestic households (10 %), industry (20 %), or evaporated from reservoirs (4 %). (Source: Shiklomanov, 1999) As the per capita use increases due to changes in lifestyle and as population increases as well, the proportion of water for human use is increasing. This, coupled with spatial and temporal variations in water availability, means that the water to produce food for human consumption, industrial processes and all the other uses is becoming scarce. Environmental crisis It is all the more critical that increased water use by humans does not only reduce the amount of water available for industrial and agricultural development but has a profound effect on aquatic ecosystems and their dependent species. Environmental balances are disturbed and cannot play their regulating role anymore. (See Water and Nature)

Freshwater is already a scarce resource. Over 70 percent of the surface of the Earth is covered by water, but only 2.5 percent is fresh water. The rest is salt water contained in the oceans. And of the already small proportion of freshwater, only 1 percent - less than 0.007 percent of all the water in the world - is easily accessible. This is the water found in lakes, rivers, reservoirs and those underground sources that are shallow enough to be tapped at an affordable cost. Only this amount is renewed regularly by rain and snowfall, and therefore available on a sustainable basis. - Uneven distribution. Regions served by major rivers have a ready supply of water - although this can vary enormously between wet and dry seasons. The Amazon carries 16 percent of global river flow (or run-off). But arid zones, which cover 40 percent of the world's landmass, have only 2 percent of run-off. - Food security. As population increases, so does the quantity of food needed to feed the planet. Since the 1960's, farmers have used intensive irrigation to meet this growing demand. Irrigation now accounts for 70 percent of all water withdrawals. In arid regions, irrigation can take up to 90 percent of available water resources. - We are wasting water. In one sense, water is never lost - it simply changes from one state or place to another. But it takes 1400 years for an underground water table (called an aquifer) to be replenished. In developing countries as much as 50 percent of drinking water is lost through leaks. Intensive irrigation also wastes as much as 40 percent of the water withdrawn. While each member of a family living in an arid area of Africa uses 10-40 litres of water a day for drinking, cooking and washing, an urban European or North American family uses 300-600 litres a day per person. Pollution. While industry returns most of the water it uses to rivers and lakes, it is often contaminated. And water drained off from irrigation usually contains fertilisers and pesticides that pollute groundwater sources and rivers. According to Andras Szollosi-Nagy, Director of UNESCO's Division of Water Sciences, water pollution is a time bomb. In European groundwater reserves, he says, the first aquifer layer is finished. The nitrate and phosphate concentration is so high that we will have to go down to the second level - if there is a second layer. - Population growth. Population is expected to grow to 8.7 billion by 2025 - 2.6 billion more than in 1995. And this growth will be highest in those areas that already have moderate or high water stress. At present about 75 percent of the Earth's population live in regions where over 20 percent of available water resources are being used. - Climate change. Many analyses forecast a 1 C to 2 C increase in air temperature by 2050 as a result of global warming. In arid regions this could result in a 10 percent drop in rainfall and a 40-70 percent reduction in the water available in rivers and lakes. In cooler regions at high latitudes, winter thaws could be more intense, causing flooding, while river levels would run low in summer.

Worldwide Crisis of Freshwater

Totally Disolved Solids

Another clean water issue

High total dissolved solids in industrial wastewater have been a problem in the Monongahela River recently and are an impending problem on a statewide level, said acting Secretary John Hanger. His comment made reference to a fall 2008 period during which incompletely treated gas well drilling brine fouled drinking water drawn from the Monongahela River in Pennsylvania during low river flows. Drinking water treatment facilities are not normally equipped to treat chlorides and sulfates, components of TDS, and rely on low levels of these contaminants in drinking water supplies. But more incidents like last falls are feared as gas well development in the Marcellus shale formation increases in the region.

Where was the EPA when we needed them?

When Congress considered whether to regulate more closely the handling of wastes from oil and gas drilling in the 1980s, it turned to the Environmental Protection Agency to research the matter. E.P.A. researchers concluded that some of the drillers waste was hazardous and should be tightly controlled. Robert Nickelsberg | Getty Images But that is not what Congress heard. Some of the recommendations concerning oil and gas waste were eliminated in the final report handed to lawmakers in 1987. It was like the science didnt matter, Carla Greathouse, the author of the study, said in a recent interview. The industry was going to get what it wanted, and we were not supposed to stand in the way. E.P.A. officials told her, she said, that her findings were altered because of pressure from the Office of Legal Counsel of the White House under Ronald Reagan. A spokesman for the E.P.A. declined to comment. The agency had planned to call last year for a moratorium on the gas-drilling technique known as hydrofracking in the New York City watershed, according to internal documents, but the advice was removed from the publicly released letter sent to New York. The documents show that the agency dropped plans to study radioactivity in drilling wastewater being discharged by treatment plants into rivers upstream from drinking water intake plants. And in Congress, members from drilling states like Oklahoma have pressured the agency to keep the focus of the new study narrow. The E.P.A. also studied hydrofracking in 2004, when Congress considered whether the process should be fully regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act. An early draft of the study discussed potentially dangerous levels of contamination in hydrofracking fluids and mentioned possible evidence of contamination of an aquifer. The final version of the report excluded these points, concluding instead that hydrofracking poses little or no threat to drinking water. Shortly after the study was released, an E.P.A. whistleblower said the agency had been strongly influenced by industry and political pressure. Agency leaders at the time stood by the studys findings.

If fracking is safe, why was the loophole needed?

The Halliburton Loophole. exempts from the Safe Drinking Water Act a coalbed methane drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, a potential polluter of underground drinking water. One of the largest companies employing this technique is Halliburton, for which Vice President Richard Cheney acted as chief executive officer in the 1990s. This exemption would kill lawsuits by Western ranchers who say that drilling for methane gas pollutes groundwater by injecting contaminated fluids underground. Only 16 companies stand to significantly benefit from this exemption from clean water laws: Anadarko, BP, Burlington Resources, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, Devon Energy, Dominion Resources, EOG Resources, Evergreen Resources, Halliburton, Marathon Oil, Oxbow (Gunnison Energy), Tom Brown, Western Gas Resources, Williams Cos and XTO. These companies gave nearly $15 million to federal candidateswith more than three-quarters of that total going to Republicans. Moreover, the 16 companies spent more than $70 million lobbying Congress.

How and why it works in your neighborhood.

Citizens Advocating for Clean Water and Corporate Responsibility Pittsburgh Bans Fracking (and Corporate Personhood) Buffalo Bans Fracking in Groundbreaking Vote

You dont need the vote to raise hell! Mother Mary Jones.

Alternatives
Geothermal Solar Wind Biomass

What we can do
Educate ourselves and others Write letters to the editor and our politicians Vote

Become active in a local organization