Most likely you are like me and you
don't know very much about how natural gas is acquired and what
impact it has on our environment. You have probably heard that it is
the new way to go in order to lessen our dependence on foreign oil.
I recently learned that the process is
called “fracking” or fracture stimulation. I have already written
an article about the corruption of Halliburton and it's connection to
the Bush Sr. and Jr. administrations. In 2004 Bush's E.P.A. Came to
the conclusion that there was no evidence that hydraulic fracturing
caused any contamination of groundwater. But it never did any water
tests to find out. In 2005 fracking was exempted from the Safe
Drinking Water Act.
I watched a documentary called Gasland
and was greatly disturbed by what I saw. People were actually able to
set their tapwater on fire by holding a lighter up to the faucet. I
watched it on HBO but you can get it on DVD or from Netflix.
The people Josh Fox interviewed were
being told that they had to prove that the natural gas industry had
contaminated their water. Shouldn't it be the gas industry proving
that it didn't contaminate the water
In response to this an industry group
released a debunking website called Energy In Depth, www.
Energyindepth.org. They are a lobbying group and PR firm for the
American Petroleum Institute.
For everything they disagreed with
they admitted something that was still not good.
Besides admitting that their industry
had not been being regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, they say
that the fracking fluid with chemicals in it is only 1% of the fluid.
But this one percent has been accused of containing, arsenic,
asbestos, barium, cadmium, chromium, cyanide, lead, mercury,
chlorobenzene, dichlorobenzene, dioxin, polychlorinated biphenyls,
toluene, trichloroethylene, xylene, radium 226-228, uranium, among
other chemicals and they admitted it. This 1% is also millions of
gallons of water, and they can't recover all of it to treat it.
Besides that they put a lot of this
water into pits that are not even always lined so there are standing
bodies of this contaminated water.
The industry has been putting out the
falsehood that HF had never been regulated under the SDWA. But that
is not true. The following spreadsheet shows just how it was
regulated, up until 2005 when it was exempted from this regulation as
a result of Bush policy.https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AgeW9Alo7tb5dDFwajBQWl8zdUxYbE14X0tSdUl1VVE&hl=en#gid=0
It shows the original law and the
exemptions regarding them.
Josh Fox asserted that the Bush/Cheney
administration pushed these exemptions through and EID says that is
inaccurate because a bunch of other senators voted for it too. One
they call attention to is Ken Salazar, from Colorado and Barack Obama
as senator from Illinois is also pointed out. This just proves to me
that it doesn't matter whether or not you are Republican or Democrat
when it comes to money and also that when a president wants something
bad enough, sometimes it is better to appear to vote with him than
against him.
George Bush created an Energy task
force within 2 weeks of being in office. There doesn't need to be
much else proof that he was behind it.
EID and Halliburton refer to the 60
year history of hydraulic fracturing. But this is misleading as well.
The practice is not the same now as it was in it's early days. Modern
HF uses 13,500 pounds of pressure but it used to be less than 10,000
pounds of pressure per square inch.
Modern HF uses up to seven million
gallons of water per frack. In Multi Stage Fracks, which last 3-4
days, about 1000 gallons per minute of water is used. That adds up
to 5,760,000 of water.
Originally HF was not used in
combination with horizontal drilling. And the chemical mixture that
is used is new. Is this a new innovative procedure or is it a 60 year
old practice? You can't have it both ways.
If you could believe that the drilling
process was entirely clean, what about the fact that the shale
formations themselves hold, heavy metals, like lead, arsenic,
strontium and chromium. There are also radioactive substances such
as uranium, thorium and radium in the Marcellus shale. How can you
believe that these wouldn't be released in the process?
This muck is classified as general
industrial waste, which keeps the wastewater from having to be
handled as carefully as it otherwise might be. The Department of
Environment Conservation has conducted tests which show this water to
naturally have 250 times the EPA allowable amount of radioactive
material and it is thousands of times higher than what is allowed in
drinking water.
What about the air pollution created by
the industry? One report I read said that they cause ground level
ozone.
In response to Josh Fox's documentary,
EID claimed that the flammable gas in the water occurred naturally
and called it biogenic. Basically they are stating that the gas was
natural, but they didn't say where it came from. I do not believe
that all of these people had flammable water before the drilling
started and that nobody noticed it or that it mysteriously appeared
in multiple households at exactly the same time but totally unrelated
to the drilling.
What about the waste-water produced by
the drilling? Chesapeake Energy reported on it's website that the
water cannot be recycled because after a few days and sometimes a
few hours it has a salt content as high as 70,000 parts per million.
That is more than twice the salt content of seawater. Just this one
statement would make you wonder about the environmental impact of
this drilling. Freshwater fish can't live in an environment that is
that salty and I can't drink it, can you?
The following is taken from
Halliburton's own website:
Fracture Stimulation Position Statement
Fracture stimulation creates a
crack – or a fracture – in a rock that allows natural gas
and/or crude oil trapped in underground formations to move more
freely through isolated production tubing so that it may rise to
the surface at faster rates and, in turn, increase hydrocarbon
production from reservoirs. Basic elements – sand, water and
pressure – are used to create fractures. In fact, sand and water
make up more than 99 percent of the fracturing fluids used today.
While the majority of fracturing fluids are of sand and water, the
remaining portion involves complex chemistry, much of which has
been created through Halliburton's research and development
efforts, and which is managed in accordance with proper industry
and governmental procedures.
This technology – also known as
hydraulic fracturing – has been used for 60 years in more than
one million wells in the United States, and has been studied and
reviewed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and
state governmental organizations to ensure it is a safe means to
enhance the production of needed fuel resources.
In light of the global demand for
natural gas, formation stimulation is critical to the responsible
production of hydrocarbons. While alternative fuels have promise,
the need for traditional fuels – including natural gas and oil –
is likely to remain substantial for decades into the future.
According to the International Energy Association's World Energy
Outlook in 2008, fossil fuels –natural gas, oil and coal –
will account for 80 percent of the world's primary energy mix in
2030.
Our goal is to provide products
and services that have the smallest environmental impact, are safe
in their intended use, consume energy and natural resources
efficiently and can be recycled, reused or disposed of safely. We
seek to develop services and technologies for maximizing the
recovery of oil and gas in existing reservoirs, and for pursuing
clean energy sources for the future.
Halliburton views Health, Safety,
Environment (HSE) & Operational Excellence as critical to our
success and long-term sustainability and we are committed to
continuously improving our performance. Our Corporate HSE Policy
is overseen by the Health, Safety and Environmental Committee of
the board of directors, which provides direction for the
management of HSE and input on current and emerging health, safety
and environmental issues.
As the cleanest fossil fuel,
natural gas meets a variety of energy needs – from generating
electricity and heating homes to powering vehicles. More and more,
however, natural gas resources are produced from unconventional
plays (e.g., gas shales, tight sands and coalbed methane) and
cannot be adequately secured and delivered to the customer
economically without the use of fracture stimulation technology.
The U.S. Congress has recognized
that fracture stimulation has been regulated for decades by the
states and is essential for future development of America's energy
supplies. When passing the federal Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA)
in 1974, and then amending it in 1980, Congress created a program
to monitor disposal of wastes injected underground. Congress made
clear it never intended to regulate well stimulation activities
under the SDWA. Congress reaffirmed this position in 2005 when it
clarified that fracturing stimulation is exempted from the SDWA,
except where diesel is used in the fracturing fluids.
That same year (2005), Halliburton
was the first to introduce an industry-leading advancement –
continuing to improve a technology it first commercialized in 1949
– by introducing diesel-free liquid gel concentrates into its
suite of well stimulations fluid systems and helping operators
move to higher levels of environmental performance.
Halliburton has always embraced
the job of ensuring that all of our technologies meet the highest
environmental standards. We continue to take a leadership position
in developing systems to rank the HSE risks of chemical products
used in oilfield services.
This system, once completed, will
enable us to rank our chemical products and compare the risks of
products that perform the same function. When the highest risk
chemicals are identified, we will work to eliminate materials and
change formulations to lower these risks.
Chemicals used in fracture
stimulation products are the first to be ranked using this system.
Halliburton expects to categorize most of our fracture stimulation
chemical product portfolio in 2009 using this process. We continue
to make publicly available all the Material Safety Data Sheets for
our chemical products on our Web
site.
There have been questions asked
and allegations made about the perceived risks of groundwater
contamination from fracture stimulation. Halliburton remains
confident that fracture stimulation is a safe and environmentally
sound practice based on the industry's decades-long track record,
as well as the conclusions of government and industry studies and
surveys.
The natural gas and oil industry
protects shallow aquifers by taking steps to prevent the escape of
fracture stimulation fluids from wells and formations. Operators
use a steel casing or liner which is then cemented in-place to
isolate the surrounding rock from the reservoir. These zonal
isolation techniques seal off and protect drinking water from
fluids used in wells. In addition, fracture stimulation activities
take place at depths that are typically thousands of feet deeper
than any groundwater aquifers that could reasonably be considered
a source of drinking water.
These industry practices are consistent with state regulatory
programs and have effectively prevented drinking water
contamination in more than one million fracture stimulation jobs
across the United States. Studies conducted by the EPA, state
agencies, and industry organizations have found no substantiated
evidence that fracture stimulation has ever contaminated
underground sources of drinking water. Even so, Halliburton
continues to improve our fracture stimulation fluids and processes
to further improve their overall environmental performance. |
There is a lot ot tech speak in this
statement, but basically they are saying that they use cement around
the drilling pipes to keep groundwater from mixing with the gas or
with the chemicals they use in the drilling process. They say that
they mostly use water and sand, and that they are doing research to
make sure that the other chemicals are as safe as possible. They say
that they are also exempt from the GWSA as long as there is no diesel
being used in the process. They say that their chemicals are diesel
free and meet government and industry regulations. “When passing
the federal Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) in 1974, and then amending
it in 1980, Congress created a program to monitor disposal of wastes
injected underground.”
This method has been evaluated by state
agencies and the EPA and deemed safe by them. Their goal is to use
methods that have little environmental empact and that the byproducts
can be recycled, reused and safely disposed of.
But this is obviously a bunch of smoke
and mirrors. The Associated Press reported in late 2010 that the EPA
asked for records showing what is used to frack new gas reserves.
Eight other companies complied, but Halliburton refused. A
Halliburton spokesperson said the EPA's request is too vague and
would result in a mountain of paper, but the company is making
efforts to honor the request.
Why is this important? Because in
states all over the country fracking has caused, groundwater
contamination, and in Pennsylvania, there have been spills and
explosions.
New York sits on the largest fresh
water reserve in the country. But in direct conflict with that is the
fact that the combined natural gas and oil reserves in New York and
Pennsylvania could meet all of America's energy needs for years.
There has been a massive amount of
drilling going on along the Marcellas Shale, which is the size of
Greece. It lies along an area that is 6,000 feet below New York,
Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. There are companies from all
over the world either drilling or financing drilling here.
Halliburton was one of the companies
involved in the BP oil spill in Louisianna. Their cement work was
faulty on that well, so who is to say that none of their other
drilling sites is faulty?
When it began to come out that there
was an environmental disaster here, Gov. Ed Rendell of PA banned any
further drilling in state forest lands. What in the world possessed
them to allow that in forests to start with. But they have been doing
it on public lands for years now.
"This responsible production of clean-burning, homegrown natural gas is creating tens of thousands of local jobs and hundreds of millions in tax revenues for the commonwealth," Klaber said."
But as good as stopping the drilling on
PA's public land sounds, such drilling only accounts for about 10
percent of all the drilling in PA.
Pennsylvania has already leased about
one-third of its 2.2 million acres of state forest for gas drilling.
The leased area represents about half of the public land covering the
shale gas deposits.
It is predicted that the land that has
already been leased could end up with as much as 12,000 wells on it.
Eventually, Halliburton released some
information on the chemicals they used. But they won't say how much,
where, or the exact concentration of the chemicals they use.
Some of them are: hydrochloric acid,
methanol and acetic acid. FR-66 (friction reducer),FE-1A (acid
additive), BE-9 (biocide to prevent bacteria that cause hydrogen
sulfide to grow and plug up pipes)
According to informantion on their
website, Halliburton says that HAI-OS is an acid-inhibitor and the UK
classes it as (O)CNS Group C Chemical. And for health and safety
labeling it should be considered toxic and flammable.
One of just 4 states to require the
disclosure of chemicals used in hydaulic fracturing is Colorado.
Their state legislature passed regulations in 2009. And now Colorado
representatives, Diana DeGette and Jared Polis and 46 others are
pressuring former Senator Ken Salazar, who is now Interior Secretary
to change and toughen regulations compelling companies to disclose
the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing.
Yesterday, January 20, 2011, the EPA
stated that it is finding that diesel has been being used in this
fracturing process. They issued a statement, because the companies
drilling for natural gas are saying that the EPA is trying to
enforce new rules without having in public hearings or giving anyone
a chance to protest. The EPA says they are just restating that they
have the right to regulate the use of diesel in the hydraulic
fracturing policy.
They are basically going to have to go
to court to prove that the law under the 2005 Energy Policy Act gave
the E.P.A. The right to regulate hydraulic fracturing when diesel is
used. It will become a bunch of legal semantics over the fact that
the Energy Policy Act excluded hydraulic fracturing from it's
definition of 'underground injection' under the Safe Drinking Water
Act, it did give the EPA the right to regulate the use of diesel
fuel.
Halliburton was one of the companies
that admitted using diesel, but they say that it didn't violate
anything because they only did it where there wasn't any drinking
water.
Pretty interesting, considering they
said on their website that they don't use diesel, since they have a
diesel-free gel that they invented. And their own website states that
the EPA has the right to regulate the use of diesel.
We need this regulation in place,
because it has been alleged that among other admitted chemicals, thse
companies are using highly toxic chemicals like benzene, toluene,
xylene and formaldehyde. Landowners have reported severe land, water
and air contamination that has greatly affected their health and
their livelihoods.
I have seen the map, and half of my
state (Ohio) and all of West Virginia, half of Kentucky and most of
Pennsylvania are being drilled. If you live in one of the places on
this map, you should be concerned, unless you figure on not ever
drinking anything again. http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/
Until attention was brought to this
issue, there had not been any proven contamination of water, because
it had not been investigated. If these chemicals have shown up in
tapwater, which had previously been clean, something caused it to be
there. They are only mentioning the HF part of the process, and not
to the whole process, when they say that there has never been a case
of contamination proven.
If HF does not inject chemicals into
drinking water, then why did they need an exemption that said they
could to be passed by Congress?
Now it has begun to be investigated. If
the light does not continue to be shone onto this matter, it will
fade away.
In the European Union you don't have to
prove that the company caused the contamination, the burden of proof
is on these companies and not their victims.
If these companies come to your town,
you may end up in a position where you can't stay on your land
because you have no water, but your property has no re-sale value
because it has no water. And if you try to settle a case with them,
they will make you sign a non-disclosure agreement in order to get
them to provide you with replacement water. And even then you won't
know if you are still somehow being exposed to these chemicals
through the air or environment. For instance the methane that makes
their water flammable can escape from the water and leak into their
homes and you can suffocate if you breathe it. At lower levels it can
cause headaches and brain damage.
Only 25 to 50 percent of the water that
is injected into the ground is recovered. The rest of what was
injected is still there contaminating the groundwater. Once it has
been contaminated, how much will it cost us to clean it, and is it
even possible to clean it up?
Many of the lands being drilled in our
country are Bureau of Land Management lands. Some of these lands are
in the Yellowstone Ecosystem. In our Appalachian region, there are so
many beautiful places that still exist, I would hate to see them
destroyed by contaminated water. In these other states, like Wyoming,
there have been studies conducted which show that the big game, fish
and other wildlife are being adversely affected by the HF drilling.
The Philadelphia Inquirer published an
article on March 14, 2010, written by Andrew Maykuth. It was called
“Gas Drilling Going Deep”. He wrote that the 18 top gas
companies held leases in the Marcellus Shale are which amounted to
13,717 square miles. That is a huge amount of our beautiful land to
have under their control.
Chesapeake Energy Corporation has
stated that eight horizontal wells on one pad per square mile is what
it consideres to be optimal.
The county I live in only has 14 people
to cover all of the things the E.P.A. Has to do. With reference to
water, there are only four. But I have to give my state government
some credit.
In 2007 a house near Cleveland
exploded. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources issued a 153 page
report that blamed the explosin on a nearby gas well, that had faulty
cement casing and was drilled with hydraulic fracturing. It had
allowed gas to seep into the homeowners well water.
Most of the lists of counties in Ohio I
found did not include Lawrence County, where I live, but the
following report says that Ohio has finalized reports on Lawrence and
Meigs county. These reports give geologic cross sections and well
locations, and maps.
In addition to my county which lies
along the Ohio River, on the other side of the river in West Virginia
there are about five counties working on reports and and in Kentucky
there were
three counties in the process of
compiling reports. But this is an old report, which means the
drilling has probably already started and a done deal.
I have city water, but my water company
obtains this water from wells along the Ohio river. I also found
another map but out by the DNR which shows where the oil and gas lies
at in Ohio.http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/portals/10/pdf/pg01.pdf
The ODNR is the department that would
give permits to drill these wells. I can't find any information on
oil or natural gas drilling here, but I have no doubt that it has at
least been well researched. The county has been thoroughly mined in
the past for both iron and coal.
Here are a few videos you can watch to
see some of this stuff in action.
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