High-Tech Gas Drilling Is Fouling Drinking Water 390
sciencehabit writes "Drilling for natural gas locked deep in a shale formation — a process known as fracking — has seriously contaminated shallow groundwater supplies beneath far northeastern Pennsylvania with flammable methane. That's the conclusion of a new study, published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The analysis gives few clues, however, to how pervasive such contamination might be across the wide areas of the Northeast United States, Texas, and other states where drilling for shale gas has taken off in recent years."
but but (Score:2, Informative)
but but Regulation is bad... m'kay?
Re:but but (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's easy enough to blame fracturing, but the process of fracturing itself is occurring deep within some producing formation. The Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania is a mile underneath the surface. If there's natural gas in the water table then it's the improper disposal of recovered fluids that is causing it, not the fracturing process. This water is supposed to be pumped back into some deep reservoir or trucked off to evaporation ponds.
Re:but but (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:but but (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's face it, SOME aspect of the fracturing process, whether it be frac water dumping, well casing failure (gotta get that pressurized water down there somehow), or the (far less likely but not yet confirmed to be impossible) slight possibility those fractures are of much greater extent than expected, is contaminating wells on a widespread basis.
The gas companies deny it's happening and still say fracking is "safe" - whenever a water well starts producing methane the gas company claims it's naturally occuring biogenic methane. Really, do you expect ANYONE to believe that multiple wells across the country which been producing clean drinking water for decades suddenly got contaminated with methane-producing bacteria within 1-2 years of fracking operations commencing nearby?
I live on top of the Marcellus, so I've been following the situation pretty closely (and yeah, I've watched GASLAND - scary material and one of the reasons I'm pro-nuclear - that industry has a far better track record in the USA and constantly strives to improve safety. Gas companies say they're safe when they clearly are not, and refuse to make any improvements.)
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A part of me feels like this article was submitted primarily as an excuse to use the word 'fracking.'
Re:but but (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's face it, SOME aspect of the fracturing process, whether it be frac water dumping, well casing failure (gotta get that pressurized water down there somehow), or the (far less likely but not yet confirmed to be impossible) slight possibility those fractures are of much greater extent than expected, is contaminating wells on a widespread basis.
Actually, that is not the case. We do not know what the incidence of methane in the water was in those wells before the gas companies started fracking (at least based on both of the articles linked to in the summary). We do not even know what the incience of methane in water wells near other, non-fracking gas wells is. Until we have at least a proxy for an answer to those questions, we will be unable to evaluate the level of risk that fracking brings and if it actually is causing a problem. Additionally, with that information, we will be able to determine how to ameliorate the problem.
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If the water is only contaminated with methane, is it even a real problem? Is methane in drinking water toxic to humans? Is there enough methane in the water to pose a fire hazard when you use the water in everyday chores? I'd think that the only scenario when water gets good gas exchange with air is in the shower and in the dishwasher. Were people's dishwashers blowing up? Did anyone lose their hair and hearing due to a methane explosion while taking a shower? Methane is odorless, so it's not like anyone w
Re:but but (Score:4, Insightful)
If there's enough methane in the air to asphyxiate you, it must mean that you're in a facility with Ex-proof equipment and are taking proper precautions. If it's a regular household, it will blow up way before it gets to a concentration where you get any respiratory symptoms. Unless you're Amish and also happen not to have any flames around, and the humidity is like in your subterranean cold room. IOW: get a sense of scale...
Re:but but (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's face it, SOME aspect of the fracturing process... is contaminating wells on a widespread basis.
The cited research doesn't actually demonstrate this. It demonstrates that wells near fracking sites have much higher methane levels that wells that are more than 1 km from fracking sites.
However, there is a reason why fracking sites are where they are: it's where there is the highest concentration of gas in the ground, or where it's easier to extract, or it's where there is some aspect of the surface access situation that makes it easier to drill there, or... So there is the potential for a selection effect to come into play here: it may be that wells drilled in the vicinity of localities that are good candidates for fracking have higher levels of methane than those that do not.
Fracking is certainly the most plausible causal candidate, but there does need to be follow-up research on these less-plausible, but not insane, alternatives.
In the meantime, states should require that all wells within 1 km of proposed fracking sites be tested for methane levels on a yearly basis, and corporations engaged in fracking should be on the hook for the costs of these tests as well as supplying the homeowners with water if there is an increase in methane levels due to deep-methane leakage of the kind reported in this paper. Only by capturing the before-and-after picture will the situation become unequivocal.
Of course, this is the United States, with the most dysfunctional, inefficient and ineffective governments in the developed world (which is why so many Americans think 'government is bad'... because their governments are). So while my proposal would be sensible in any other country, in the US the state governments are almost certainly incompetent to execute such a simple plan. Americans just aren't able to do the things that other people in other countries manage all the time, without any fuss or bother.
Re:but but (Score:5, Informative)
That's not exactly correct. The "gas" and oil is locked in the shale. In contrast to conventional reservoirs, it is not a gas until the fracturing of the rock and extraction with the magical fluids that Cheney made sure do not need EPA approval. It is entirely possible (though not demonstrated) that the fracking process that releases the gas allows the gas to seep up through the rocks into the groundwater above. (typical gas reservoirs rely on impermeable rock structures above that have trapped the gas. Shales can be underneath porous rock without losing the hydrocarbons they contain.)
However, the study did analyze water from sites at various distances from the gas extraction wells and found that the closest ones had more methane and had a composition matching fossil fuel, while those sites farther from the gas production had much less methane and had markers for recent biological origin. The underlying shale formations do not change drastically over the horizontal distances involved in the measurements. So it seems pretty obvious, if not absolutely proven, that the methane in the water comes from the operations of the extraction companies.
Re:but but (Score:4, Informative)
Re:but but (Score:4, Interesting)
It's easy enough to blame fracturing, but the process of fracturing itself is occurring deep within some producing formation.
It's also easy enough to blame the massive increase of CO2 in our atmosphere on the nearly perfectly correlated massive increase of human industry pumping CO2 into the atmosphere but that would be inconvenient for my energy stock prices so I choose not to believe it.
;-) That's a huge degree of correlation, and the chemistry of the hydrocarbons in the water match the chemistry of the gas in the nearby wells.
Did even you RTFA? (In this case I mean did you read the fracking Abstract of the scientific paper in question?
Yeah sure the fracturing does take place much deeper than the water table, they have to pump the fracturing fluids down to the shale which involves pumping them THROUGH the water table. Yes I know that the procedure involves sealing the well hole before pumping the nasty stuff down there, but when they drill hundreds of wells in a region only a few have to leak to ruin the local water table. Of course the oil/gas extraction business has such a great safety record and they have never made a mess of things before, so why should we believe science when we can believe BP? I think you should consider not drinking the water from your local well, obviously the fracking fluids are messing with your thinking process.
Oh and by the way, those fracturing fluids, as revealed in the very interesting movie Gasland, are comprised of over 500 chemicals including several known human carcinogens and many suspected human carcinogens. So it is not like this is some academic question. Water tables all over the nation are turning foul with this stuff.
BR Here is another thing to ponder. Until very recently this technique for extracting gas was very rare. Towards the end of the Bush administration, this particular industry was exempted from compliance withe clean water act. Right after that fracking becomes the most important new development in energy extraction. Correlation or causation? It seems pretty clear to me that someone was afraid that they would be unable to comply with clean water regulations so they didn't bother until they made sure that their ass was covered.
Re:but but (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, if you read the abstract, you'll see that they found no evidence of fraccing brines ending up in the water itself -- only the gas. Curious, eh? This, combined with the incredible depth of the reservoirs being fracced vs. the aquifers and the number of layers of cap rock between the fracced reservoirs and the aquifers leads me to the hypothesis that it's not the fracced reservoir itself that's leaking; it's the recovery wells. This could be some combination of poor cementing, poor steel casing/attachments, better gas permeability in the conditions present than anticipated, gas developing its own channel to the surface just outside the well through the weak points in the strata created by the well, etc. Thoughts?
This hypothesis could be tested. In some wells you could inject a tracer gas into the reservoir after fraccing but before production begins, while in others you could inject it into the recovery wells just below the point of the aquifer. You could then draw the following conclusions:
Reservoir: Yes, Well: Yes: Either there are multiple paths for the gas to reach the surface, or more likely, the gas is leaking up through or around the casing of the non-producing well.
Reservoir: No, Well: Yes: Gas is leaking out from the production well, but no significant amount is able to move up through/around the casing from the reservoir.
Reservoir: Yes, Well: No: No: Gas is leaking up directly from the fracced reservoir, independent of the well.
Reservoir: No, Well: No: This would throw this study into doubt.
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How do you get "nature done it" from "improper disposal"?
Really quite curious.
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"2) But a scientific study has shown that wells near fracking sites produce fouled water."
except that's not true.
So the real game is spot the lie.
Which is number 2.
Now, if you think the means number 1 is true, you fail logic.
From the study:
"We found no evidence for contamination of drinking-water samples with deep saline brines or fracturing fluids."
and:
" we found no evidence for contamination of the shallow wells near active drilling sites from deep brines and/or fracturing fluids"
and:
" In sum, the geochem
Re:but but (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah, yes, it's not like people have been living in the area and using well water for a couple hundred years. Yet now, they can light their tap water on fire [youtube.com] and somehow this study does not count because no one tested the water beforehand.
Would there have been a reason to test the water BEFORE you could light it on fire? And what might be the cause now [huffingtonpost.com], after a hundred years of prior use, that the water is flammable?
This is not something confined to the PA-NY border; [discovermagazine.com] it happens wherever fracking goes on, yet we are supposed to believe that this particular case is confined to one bad operator? The gas industry needs to seriously review the precautions they are supposed to be taking and see if they are truly being responsible corporate citizens.
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No, the cooperative collaborative folks are fighting against the legal structures known as corporations which are nothing more than feudal fiefdoms of the ultra wealthy. I'm not talking mom and pop businesses. I'm not talking about medium sized businesses, either. I'm not talking collectives, credit unions, or cooperatives, the real collaborations of individuals. I'm talking about mega corporations which only care about the interests of the executive officers, the board, and maybe the wealthiest shareholder
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Methane from the mining operations has a different ratio of Carbon 13 to Carbon 12 than methane formed by biological processes from atmospheric CO2. This is what they mean when they refer to isotopic analysis, the the ratios of the various isotopes of carbon.
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"Bottled in Scranton, Pennsylvania"
Look at the bright side, maybe you can really run your car on 'water' now
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until you need to wash your clothes/dishes/water-lawn with bottled water
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Yes, public safety is the BEST subject for regulation. All others are optional.
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Don't have to do that work, the US Federal Government has already done the work. It's called the Code of Federal Regulations and it fills several bookcases at my local library.
Then you have the State, County, and Town equivalents -- dwarfed by the Federal contribution -- and that's a lot of books. All too much of the content serves no real purpose but t
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Typical, pinning the blame on anti-regulation. When various governments are actually what is protecting these gas companies from lawsuit damages.
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"When various governments are actually what is protecting these gas companies from lawsuit damages."
right, aka anti-regulation. the government has to police corporations, not be in their pocket. your definition of regulation is odd
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That's regulation of the citizens. The company is under no regulation there.
Re:but but (Score:5, Insightful)
Typical, pinning the blame on anti-regulation. When various governments are actually what is protecting these gas companies from lawsuit damages.
Just as it's difficult or impossible to attribute individual cases of lung cancer to smoking tobacco products, it's usually difficult to impossible to prove that the contamination of an individual well that provides drinking water came from fracking. When you don't know who caused a well to go bad, who do you sue? The protection that the drilling companies are receiving from government comes in the form of lack of oversight and transparency lobbied for by the drilling companies and land owners who stand to make more money if there is a less oversight and transparency. NY state has delayed issuing drilling permits for fracking pending the release of a study by the EPA. Drilling companies and land owners have been poring money into the state capital in an attempt to persuade government officials to permit drilling to start as soon as possible, regardless of the outcome of the report. Many small towns in NY state that rely on centralized wells for the entire community are surrounded by land owners who want to start drilling as soon as possible. If the community's water well goes bad, who gets sued? Is it possible to determine which land owner or drilling company among many is to blame? Best practices, based on the most up to date research and enforced by good regulation and oversight, will do more to prevent ground water contamination than any number of after the fact lawsuits.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, let's see. the FCC is owned by the telecom industry. the FDA is owned by the large food companies. does anyone really think regulation ever benefits the people? or just the big industry players? it sounds good, but in practice, government regulation is there to protect and entrench big business. there is nothing in it for the people, never will be.
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Ever? When was the last time you bought spoiled meat that had red clothing dye that contains mercury added for color and borax cleaning agent added to remove the smell? That was industry standard operating procedure in the US until food safety regulation. When was the last time you heard about a factory burning down and killing hundreds of employees because the exits were chained to prevent people taking a 15 minute break in their 16 hour shift?
When was the last time you heard about someone lacing milk with
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When everything is owned by someone with a genuine economic interest, there are no externalities.
Re:but but (Score:5, Insightful)
Almost nobody owns mineral rights beneath their own home. Since your neighbors or the person who owns your neighbors' mineral rights can still pollute your air and water, you can't even stop natural gas fracking from occurring in your neighborhood.
Natural gas fracking often lowers property values. Since polluted wastelands aren't unappealing to most people you can count on your home losing value when your neighbors consent to fracking.
Who are you supposed to sue and for what when natural gas drilling ruins your home's value? Has anyone even successful sued over home value loss due to drilling? Your neighbor who consented to it? The corporation who is following every law and regulation?
We need regulation to protect people from corporations whose only interest is profit. Otherwise people are given bottled water as a legal settlement for the wholesale pollution and destruction of their land and air.
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And the amusing thing is that you probably call liberals and progressives idealists whose beliefs would never work out in the real wo
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Who owns the atmosphere?
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Laws are good, regulations are bad (Score:4, Interesting)
Imagine if your neighbor's toilet clogged and, instead of calling a plumber, he started taking a dump over the fence on your garden.
What would you do?
A) call the police
or
B) complain about lack of a regulation on taking a dump over the fence?
There are already laws in effect stating that no one is allowed to poison their neighbor's water. However, since natural gas extraction *is* regulated, and the regulations do not prohibit fracking, then an exception is created allowing the corporations to poison the water in this manner.
The problem with regulations is that when you create them, instead of using the existing laws, something that would not normally be permitted could be allowed by the regulations by default.
Re:Laws are good, regulations are bad (Score:5, Informative)
Natural gas fracking is specifically exempted from the clean air act and clean water act.
We can thank George W Bush and Republican majority for that... [wikipedia.org]
Please don't forget which political party enacted a law which legalizes the poisoning of neighborhoods and entire regions.
Re:Laws are good, regulations are bad (Score:5, Informative)
The Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act (H.R. 2766), (S. 1215) - dubbed the FRAC Act - was introduced to both houses of the 111th United States Congress on June 9, 2009, and aims to repeal the exemption for hydraulic fracturing in the Safe Drinking Water Act. It would require the energy industry to disclose the chemicals it mixes with the water and sand it pumps underground in the hydraulic fracturing process (also known as fracking), information that has largely been protected as trade secrets. Controversy surrounds the practice of hydraulic fracturing as a threat to drinking water supplies.[1] The gas industry opposes the legislation.[2]
The House bill was introduced by representatives Diana DeGette, D-Colo., Maurice Hinchey D-N.Y., and Jared Polis, D-Colo.
The Senate version was introduced by senators Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
citation provided [wikipedia.org]
I wonder if the same Republicans that exempted fracking from the clean air and clean water act blocked this bill...
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The bill passed 74 to 26 in 2005 including our current President (D). There certainly weren't 74 Republicans in the Senate in 05...
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00213 [senate.gov]
I'm getting flipping sick and tired of blaming EVERYTHING on one side or the other... This isn't a football game.
New? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:New? (Score:5, Informative)
A documentary is a collection of anecdotes. A study is a presentation of systematically-gathered empirical data.
Also, a study can be new while not introducing a new idea. In fact, many or most aren't, but are instead done to test a suspicion or hypothesis based on anecdotal evidence.
indie documentary vs scientific journal (Score:2)
the problem with Josh Fox's movie is that the Gas industry hired a bunch of PR flacks to shoot him down at every available opportunity. if you surf any internet forum comment thread on this issue, you will see post after post after post that use classic PR strategies, like avoiding the question, changing the subject, and personal attacks against Fox, (it almost reads like a page out of Team Themis' plans against Glen Greenwald), etc.
Another thing the PR flacks rely on is the lack of 'scientific proof'. They
Documentary About Fracking (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/ [gaslandthemovie.com]
You know fracking is bad when you can put a lighter up to a running facet in your kitchen and a fireball erupts.
Re:Documentary About Fracking (Score:4, Funny)
You know fracking is bad when you can put a lighter up to a running facet in your kitchen and a fireball erupts.
But what about this rebuttal movie clip, "The Truth About Gasland", with folk music and happy children and puppies and sunshine?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1W8MnveFq8 [youtube.com]
Re:Documentary About Fracking (Score:5, Funny)
The Truth About Gasland [anga.us]
Now be honest, who would you trust more. Some dirty hippy driving around with a video camera making a film.
OR
America's Natural Gas Alliance. That's an American ALLIANCE with AMERICANS. You don't hate America do you?
Plus, REGULATORS found it wasn't natural gas. If you can't trust American regulators, who can you trust?
So we can dismiss Colorado's DNR as well? (Score:2, Informative)
Seeing that they are the basis for many of the rebuttals to the exaggerated claims in the Gasland movie?
This is a problem I generally have with these groups that produce movies such as Gasland (Michael Moore is similar). They love to exaggerate, misdirect, and some out right lie in their presentations, all to make their case more dire. They love to incite fear and then quickly go elsewhere when objections are raised. They are quick to dismiss any objection under the head nodding, wink wink, type claim that
josh fox is nothing like michael moore (Score:2)
if you would watch the movies you would understand that Josh Fox is nothing like Michael Moore. he doesn't ambush any executives in order to get a video clip of him chasing after some guy in a parking lot or elevator lobby (Moore).
the executives just flat out don't talk to him. he calls and calls and calls. who will talk to him? dozens of homeowners, a handful of scientists, and an obviously conflicted regulator. Fox's film main strength is that a lot of it is very dispassionate.
Re:So we can dismiss Colorado's DNR as well? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
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EVERYONE points to that. I personally know several people in southern new york that can do that when NO hydrofracking has happened any where near them. It happens naturally, people. Seriously. Gasland is about as balanced as Michael Moore.
It didn't happen to those people till the fracking started which leads to the conclusion that it was because of the hydro fracking.
Also, the gas companies basically admit guilt when they purchase $25,000-$100,000 water filters and install them on the house.
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Give an example of the towns affected?
The nearest flammable well I know of is in Dimock, PA, about 45 minutes south of me. That one is clearly due to drilling - those wells ran clean for decades and then went downhill right after drilling commenced.
There's also the recent major blowout/frac water spill in Bradford County.
Yeah, the water in the Owego/Binghamton area isn't so hot (high mineral content, rusty), but no one on this side of the border has fizzy flammable water.
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You know fracking is bad when you can put a lighter up to a running facet in your kitchen and a fireball erupts.
Obligatory youtube clip: inflamable tap water [youtube.com]
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*koff* [consumerist.com]
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No you don't. since you don't know that was caused by the fracking.
If it started or increased in frequency or severity after the fracking started then you have a correlation. But you don't "know fracking is bad".
The study the article is about, however, that's much better evidence that "fracking is bad".
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Your argument doesn't pass the "smell test" figuratively or literally.
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Dimock's water ran clean prior to fracking operations commencing.
you can also light money on fire (Score:2)
if the PR flacks are paying you based on how many anonymous bullshit 'rebuttals' you spray all over the internet.
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People die naturally from be
How much are they getting paid though? (Score:3)
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Problem is that contaminated water doesn't stay in one place.
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Re:How much are they getting paid though? (Score:5, Interesting)
If pollutants respected property lines, this would be much less of a problem...
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Anecdotally = Pulled it out of your ass.
Well, he *is* talking about methane...
Re:How much are they getting paid though? (Score:5, Interesting)
Anecdotally = Pulled it out of your ass.
Well, he *is* talking about methane...
I live an an area where drillers have recently bought (and continue to buy) drilling leases. The parent is right! That is EXACTLY what happens.
All of the drilling in my area is of the horizontal variety. The gas company buys a drilling lease on one small plot of land (a couple acres). They drill straight down for a little then they turn their drill so that it runs horizontally. They then drill horizontally for UP TO SIX MILES so it doesn't really matter who leases the land they park their drilling rig on. All it takes is one greedy asshole every few miles and your community is fucked. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_drilling [wikipedia.org]
The nature of the gas deposits in the Marcellus Shale Formation requires that every well has a massive horizontal component and that is fracked to hell and back. It's completely uneconomical to drill regular vertical unfracked wells in Marcellus shale. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcellus_Formation#Fossil_fuel [wikipedia.org]
The kids are not getting anything (Score:3)
They are equally entitled to clean drinking water. And the people who dont own the property in apartment complexes are not getting anything. And the locally grown produce getting sprayed with this stuff, which is then fed to kids, livestock. They arent getting paid. If they cannot mine this valuable substance without contaminating the water, then they should have to completely replace the water supply with water piped in from a clean location. Every house, every yard, every farm well replaced wit
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So it is okay to ruin the environment and jeopardize the health of everyone in the area for money, but only if you are poor?
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Ask that question to the coal industry (re: West Virginia). I bet their answer is a resounding YES! followed up by stating "look at the jobs we are creating. Why without dangerous, environmental destroying mining these people would have nothing to live for. See, we are saving lives".
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Drinking the water directly may be a problem, but I would guess it isn't, since methane is a natural expel gas for humans (in some farts). The fire hazard is another problem.
IANAEOTS, and
frac fluid is full of harmful chemicals (Score:2)
the fluid the pump down into the ground is a cocktail of chemicals dreamed up in a lab to better crack rocks apart. the levels of chemicals were even kept secret from the public for a long time.
you can get more information about the chemicals in a big mac than about what the gas companies are pumping into your water supply.
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Well, the argument is over, the AC has spoken.
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farmers actually depend on clean water (Score:2)
considering the tens of thousands of farmers who depend on underground aquefers for the water they use on their crops and to water their cattle, i just dont understand your post, at all.
the gasland film even has a rancher on it whose cattle are suffering becasue of contamination.
Woot! (Score:2)
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I've invented a car that runs on water, but that water needs to come from the taps in PA.
And the company response is... (Score:5, Funny)
"Some of you may have noticed if you've tried to drink during the course of the last few years that your drinking water is now natural gas. That's because we've been doing invisible drilling in your area, which is turning your drinking water into natural gas. Don't worry, that just means it's working."
- Frack Johnson
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Fracking exempted from Clean Water Act (Score:5, Interesting)
As Kevin Grandia wrote [huffingtonpost.com] last year:
In 2005, at the urging of Vice President Cheney, fracking fluids were exempted from the Clean Water Act after the companies that own the patents on the process raised concerns about disclosing proprietary formulas - if they had to meet the Act's standards they would have to reveal the chemical composition which competitors could then steal. Fair enough, but this also exempts these companies from having to meet the strict regulations that protect the nation's freshwater supply.
Re:Fracking exempted from Clean Water Act (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/03/01/fracking-earthquakes-arkansas-man-experts-warn/
Frack (Score:2)
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But the gas is "natural", so that's fine.
Not 100% sure it is fraccing (Score:2)
shoal gas from the America (Score:2)
For the foreseeable future, America's LNG seems to be the way to free ourselves from the energy racketeering, exercised by hostile Asian countries. I
Let's destroy this planet. At any cost. (Score:2)
It's not enough to pursue fossil fuels to the point of destroying the environment on a global scale, but what really, really pisses me off is that the 10 motherf@#$ in control of the world's supply are so crazed with insatiable greed that they can, and will, continue to as they wish with no regard for anything. They are unstoppable becuase they own the lawmakers.
I'm looking at you especially, Walker; you kochsucker.
A modest proposal (Score:2)
Instead of condemning fracking as a public health risk due to methane release in the ground water, why don't we come up with a simple separator that could be connected to people's wells that would siphon off the methane and either store it or use it to heat the home or generate electricity?
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Re:A sign of desperation (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, a bunch of powerless people get to drink carcinogens; but that's an externality, and doesn't show up on their balance sheets.
The real problem here is that a bunch of people have been given alarmingly broad rights to shove costs onto others, without their consent, which has made substantially destructive practices highly cost effective. It is indefensible from basically every position between(and including) libertarian and certified green party; but since "Plutocrat" is the position actually calling the shots, we are unlikely to see much effective opposition.
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From the study synopsis:
"In active gas-extraction areas (one or more gas wells within 1 km), average and maximum methane concentrations in drinking-water wells increased with proximity to the nearest gas well and were 19.2 and 64 mg CH4 L-1 (n = 26), a potential explosion hazard; in contrast, dissolved methane samples in neighboring nonextraction sites (no gas wells within 1 km) within similar geologic formations and hydrogeologic regimes averaged only 1.1 mg L-1 (P 0.05; n = 34)."
Re:Basic flaw in the study as reported (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude. It's published in PNAS, one of the top scientific journals (which means the peer review would have been brutal). Read the actual study - even in just the abstract, they answer some of your questions regarding the methodology. In the actual paper, they clearly explain their basic methodology and the principles behind it, as well as their conclusions.
Your concerns are unwarranted. They test a valid comparison between fracking sites and non-extraction sites. They show quite convincingly data demonstrating the origin of the methane (ie. differentiation between biogenic and thermogenic sources), and they note that many of their non-extraction sites are slated for extraction in the future, which will allow a follow up paper for a longitudinal look at fracking on levels of methane gas in water sources and as surface emissions as modified by local geology.
I'm a biochemist, not a geologist, but the paper is super easy to read, and only 5 pages to boot. Give it a go.
And, in future, here's a hint: If you, a complete layperson, can come up with a number of problems to a scientific study in a few minutes, then you can bet that actual experts in the field who have dedicated their entire professional career (usually decades long) to these sorts of questions may just have thought about them too.
science is nothing compared to the power of belief (Score:3)
clearly "Attila Dimedici (1036002) ", has not actually read the article before responding to it.
but that doesn't matter. they KNOW they are right.
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You failed to read the article. They explicitly tested wells up to 5 km from the closest fracking site, and they also tested for the source of the methane. The methane measured at far distances (1-5km from the closest site) was coming from naturally occuring bacteria, and averaged 1 mg / L, while methane measured closer to the sites ( 1km ) ranged from 19mg/L to 64 mg/L, and the type of methane was the same as obtained from extraction from the shale, being hydrocarbon rich. They also pointed that a few furt
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You realize that to get to the shale you have to dig a hole down to it.
That hole then gets pressurized with whatever is down in the shale.
If that hole leaks because someone slacked on their casing cement job, then you have methane from deep origins leaking out at the level of the water table.
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The problem is filtering alone isn't enough. A lot of times the chemicals in the water actually eat the filtering equipment.
They either need water trucked in or use cisterns.
Sean D.
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Well, if it's that bad that even distilling it won't fix it, then you're right - they're screwed.
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Actually, it's thought that methane is safe to drink (plus, it boils out of the water pretty well). The problem is it building up in houses and suffocating people or starting fires. Running your drinking water through a filter won't fix that.
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Dang. So you'd need to install a ventillation system similar to what you use for Radon gas in every home.
Way to go, oil company. You know, in a way, I'll be glad when the oil runs out and they are out of a job. Because I can't think of an industry that has done more damage to the environment worldwide or led to more wars and strife.
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If your government cannot deliver clean drinkable water it has utterly failed. Might as well not have one if it's just going to let industry ravage the land and expect you to pay for the consequences.
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People in civilized places don't need to. What comes out of the tap is cleaner than bottled water.
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My apartment is literally 100 feet from the Susquehanna, and I live right on top of the Marcellus.
Owego's water is marginal enough without adding frac fluid to the mix, thank you very much.