Toxic chemicals pumped underground to break up seams of rock and increase oil and gas production have a fun nickname: fracking fluids, short for fracturing. (Go on, say it: frack!) But the fun stops there. Fracking fluids go largely unregulated, despite millions of gallons of use and hundreds of reported spills each year. Thanks to proprietary trade laws, energy companies don't have to disclose the ingredients of the chemical mix they pump into the earth, but the U.S. EPA nonetheless says fracking fluids are safe for the environment and groundwater. In a recent incident in Colorado, emergency-room worker Cathy Behr was diagnosed with chemical poisoning after treating a man who had been caught in a fracking-fluid spill that was never officially reported. "I always thought that the industry probably took chances," says Behr. "But I always thought someone was watching them." Colorado issued its first regulations for fracking fluid this week, applauded by environmentalists and opposed by industry.
source: Newsweek
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gonesouth150 Posted 5:33 am
21 Aug 2008
I worked for Halliburtion Service Company in the 1970 durning the summer months while going to college and one summer worked in the FRAC Department of that company.
The procedure to drill a oil & gas well under the Texas State Railroad Commission (State Department that regulates the oil & gas business)is that the operator must proctect the water bearing strata (in south texas) down to 3,000' (Feet) with 7" cemented casing . Most water bearing aquiers in south texas are above 1,000'.
Most fracs jobs on gas sands in south texas are usually done on sand formation starting at 12,000' to 25,000'. It consists of maybe a million pounds of sand along with 100,000 barrels of mixed water & gel to move the sand into the tight gas sands to open up the porsitiy to increase the flow of natural gas up the wellhead.
Have a nice day!
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Zephaniah Posted 10:33 am
21 Aug 2008
"Fractured Relations--New York City Sees Drilling as Threat to Its Water Supply
by Abrahm Lustgarten - August 6, 2008 8:30 am EDT
Tags: Drilling, Marcellus Shale, Natural Gas, New York, New York City
New York City officials have demanded a ban on natural gas drilling near upstate reservoirs because they fear the drilling could contaminate the city's drinking water.
"They've asked the state Department of Environmental Protection to establish a one-mile protective perimeter around each of the city's six major Catskill reservoirs and connecting infrastructure -- a buffer that would put at least half a million acres off-limits to drilling. They also want to wrest more regulatory control from Albany.
New York is one of just four major cities in the United States with a special permit allowing its drinking water to go unfiltered, and that pristine water comes from a network of reservoirs and rivers in five upstate counties. If the special permit was revoked, the city would have to build a treatment facility that could cost nearly $10 billion, said Walter Mugden, a senior official at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That's roughly what the state estimated it would earn from gas development over the next decade.
In a letter (PDF) from the city Department of Environmental Protection to state officials, obtained by ProPublica, commissioner Emily Lloyd said she was not satisfied with the state's assurances that the environment would be protected from drilling in the Marcellus Shale, a layer of rock that dives up to 9,000 feet below much of the Appalachian east, including south central New York state and the 2000-square-mile watershed.
The letter doesn't offer any specifics on how drilling might taint the city's water or explain the basis for the one-mile buffer, but it made clear that as guardians of New York's water, city officials view drilling as a serious threat to the tap water supply for nine million downstate residents. It could involve thousands of gas wells producing billions of gallons of toxic wastewater.
"If you are ranking areas of concern that need extremely careful protection [the New York watershed] would have to be at the top of anybody's list," Mugden said. "More than half the state...depends on that watershed on a daily basis."
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Getting the gas involves a process called hydrofracking, or shooting millions of gallons of water and drilling chemicals at explosive pressure deep underground to break up the rock, and drilling the Marcellus would require more water than most other types of drilling. The identity of the chemicals, which are sometimes toxic, is protected as a trade secret, making it difficult to assess how wastewater can be safely treated and discharged. Drilling in other states has resulted in more than a thousand wastewater spills that have affected drinking water.
An investigation last month by ProPublica and WNYC public radio found that New York state had not adequately assessed the environmental risks and did not have a complete regulatory structure in place to determine where the immense amounts of water used would come from, or how it would be disposed of after it was used.
...
Last week Gov. David Paterson ordered the DEC to update the 16-year-old environmental impact assessment it was relying on and pledged to require the industry to disclose the chemicals it uses. But he did not promise to stop drilling from going forward in the meantime. ...
The city was not brought into the gas drilling conversation until mid-July, even though state officials had been working on the issue for seven months. The city sent a letter to state officials raising concerns about a new well-spacing bill that was before the governor, and Lloyd requested special consideration for the watershed a few days later.
Both the state and the city have tried to keep their negotiations private. A DEC spokesman said the agency works closely with the city, and the city responded in kind. ...
Councilman James Gennaro, chairman of the city's Environmental Protection committee, is calling for a moratorium on drilling in the Catskill watershed. (Credit: John Smock/AP Photo)
James Gennaro, a New York City councilman and chairman of the city's committee for environmental protection, wants the city to go further. He is calling for a complete moratorium on drilling anywhere in the Catskill watershed, which provides 90 percent of New York City's water and also makes up the heart of the Marcellus deposit. He said he will ask the EPA to conduct its own study of the threat drilling poses to the city's drinking water.
"I just don't think it's a proper activity for an area which is the city of New York's most precious capital asset," he said. "I think it poses a risk. I think they are going to say quite candidly that it is a problem. Let the federal government go on record." "
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mauryh Posted 6:22 am
26 Aug 2008
The day after the well was drilled, I awoke with a sickening feeling. Our organic farm normally buzzed and chirped with a thousand sounds of insects and birds, but everything was silent. Days after the well was drilled, all the fish in my spring-fed pond died. The water in my house well was poisoned and my husband and I could never drink from it again.
My husband was the first to drink the well water after the drilling & got horribly ill. Even though I was able to get your "Texas Railroad Commission" to order the well shut down, it was too late. Visible pollution spread throughout my property and strange molds and fungus covered the trees.
Before my experience, I had no idea just how horrible and devastating the environmental pollution from an oil well could be. Your smug, semi-literate response is obscene. Your claims that Texas laws protect the water is patently false.
Fifteen years after he drank the poisoned water, my husband died from acute myelogenous leukemia. How do I know his death wasn't caused by the unregulated chemicals used in drilling the illegal well? How do I know the oil industry doesn't just use oil drilling as an excuse to avoid paying to dispose of hazardous chemicals? How do you sleep?
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