Minor Quakes In the UK Likely Caused By Fracking 318
Stirling Newberry writes "Non-conventional extraction of hydrocarbons is the next wave of production, including natural gas and oil – at least according to its advocates. One of the most controversial of the technologies being used is hydraulic fracture drilling, or 'fracking.' Energy companies have been gobbling up Google ad words to push the view that the technology is 'proven' and 'safe,' while stories about the damage continue to surface. Adding to the debate are two small tremors in the UK — below 3.0, so very small – that were quite likely the result of fracking there. Because the drilling cracks were shallow, this raises concerns that deeper cracks near more geologically active areas might lead to quakes that could cause serious damage."
UK? (Score:2)
"Frack yeah!"
However, if fracking would have caused a minor quake anywhere, I would have thought it would have been in the US, because of the rampant obesity. Maybe it's all in the rhythm.
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It's perfectly safe (Score:2)
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if you're rich enough to live far away from it. Frankly I don't see the problem.
Sure. But what if your fine bungalow happens to be below a dam, which collapses because extraction of petroleum from beneath it changes the contour of the Earth, just enough to weaken the structure?
Stuff happens to the rich, too.
Groundwater (Score:5, Informative)
Not to mention its potential impact on local groundwater:
http://water.epa.gov/type/groundwater/uic/class2/hydraulicfracturing/index.cfm [epa.gov]
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Re:Groundwater (Score:4, Interesting)
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And you believe it's all because of natural gas drilling. Sucker.
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Re:Groundwater (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRZ4LQSonXA [youtube.com]
This isn't what I had in mind when I asked for 'firewater'
The movie Gas Land has been discredited and this particular water source had Nat gas in it BEFORE fracking began. They are called hissing wells; water wells that are also souces of nat gas. If anything Fracking will improve the water source since it is removing the nat gas. Peddle your propaganda elsewhere.
Re:Groundwater (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Groundwater (Score:4, Interesting)
The movie Gas Land has been discredited
Kinda like how people arguing for the existence of climate change, evolution, and the link between tobacco and cancer have been "discredited?"
Re:Groundwater (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/09/fracking-methane-flammable-drinking-water-study_n_859677.html
Re:Groundwater (Score:5, Interesting)
My brother in law works on a rig. Last month his crew got a hammerbit stuck in the hole. They pumped hundreds of barrels of "soap" and water into the hole to try to free it. This well was communicating with others which started to leak this fluid. So now you have gas wells that are 50 years old pumping lubricating fluid instead of gas. Since that is another company, they will likely get sued. Had it been a water well they homeowner might not have the resources to do that. They ended up using explosives to free the pipe but they lost the bit and a few collars. The rig started to sink due to the vast amount of fluid pumped into the ground. How much environmental study was involved in all that?
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Of course, there are parts of the world where people routinely fire automatic weapons into the sky in celebration. Those bullets all have to land somewhere and there's a potential for that somewhere to be a kid's head. Does it actually happen often? I'll be honest, I don't know, it's not relevant to my point. The point I'm making is that, until one of those bullets falls into one of their own kids' skulls, the guys firing the guns don't care about the potential for it to happen, just like you don't seem to
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Even with a major earthquake (Score:4, Interesting)
Even with a major earthquake occurring because of "fracking" it's a non-issue compared to the damage done to the water table by the chemicals used in the process, toxic for centuries afterwards.
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EVEN WITH A MAJOR EARTHQUAKE OCCURING because of "fracking" it's a non-issue compared to the damage done to the water table by the chemicals used in the process, toxic for centuries afterwards.
Story of pit/strip mines around the world, too. Toxic waste containment, seepage into ground water, cleanup was never were never in the vocabulary for some of these.
Re:Even with a major earthquake (Score:4, Informative)
Gas reserves are far below water tables in complete different strata...five thousand to 20,000 feet, far , far deeper than any aquifer.
But you keep drinking that Kool Aid.
Re:Even with a major earthquake (Score:5, Insightful)
Yea, 'cause you don't have to drill through that first, and there's no chance that raising the pressure below could force things just under the water table up into it.
It might not be as bad as 'the sky is falling' folks claim, but it isn't good either.
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seriously.. it isnt like the oil under the gulf of mexico has ever polluted the water there . Differences in depth cannot be defeated by pressure.
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do i ? I think that a pipe of some sort will be needed to get the stuff that is way below the water table to above the water table. I am not going to argue chances and percentage risks, but to dismiss any possibility of problems based on distance between layers seems a bit too optimistic.
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interesting to hear from the other side...
the key word here is "responsibly" though.
responsibly run nuke plants are safer than any other form of power (as the stats thrown around this and many other threads appear to show).
only problem is when large amounts of money are involved, human error seems to increase.
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Then please explain this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U01EK76Sy4A [youtube.com]
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Funny how people didn't have a problem with their tap water being flammable before fracking.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRZ4LQSonXA [youtube.com]
Have any other "theories"? How about "Aliens landed in the area to learn the art of fracking and seeped some rocked fuel?"
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There are, however, documented incidents of contamination. In 2006 drilling fluids and methane were detected leaking from the ground near a gas well in Clark, Wyoming; 8 million cubic feet of methane were eventually released, and shallow groundwater was found to be contaminated.[22] In the town of Dimock, Pennsylvania, 13 water wells were contaminated with methane (one of them blew up), and the gas company, Cabot Oil & Gas, had to financially compensate residents and construct a pipeline to bring in clean water; the company continued to deny, however, that any "of the issues in Dimock have anything to do with hydraulic fracturing".[25][21] A Duke University study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2011 examined methane in groundwater in Pennsylvania and New York states overlying the Marcellus Shale and the Utica Shale. It determined that groundwater tended to contain much higher concentrations of methane near fracking wells, with potential explosion hazard; the methane's isotopic signatures and other geochemical indicators were consistent with it originating in the fracked deep shale formations, rather than any other source.[26] Complaints from a few residents on water quality in a developed natural gas field prompted an EPA groundwater investigation in Wyoming. The EPA reported detections of methane and other chemicals such as phthalates in private water wells.[27] In Pavillion, Wyoming, the EPA discovered traces of methane and foaming agents in several water wells near a gas rig, though it suggested these chemicals might have come from cleaning products.[25] In DISH, Texas, elevated levels of disulphides, benzene, xylenes and naphthalene have been detected in the air, alongside numerous local complaints of headaches, diarrhoea, nosebleeds, dizziness, muscle spasms and other problems. Epidemiological studies that might confirm or rule out any connection between these complaints and fracking are virtually non-existent. Individuals "smell things that don't make them feel well, but we know nothing about cause-and-effect relationships in these cases."[28] In Garfield County, Colorado, another area with a high concentration of drilling rigs, volatile organic compound emissions increased 30% between 2004 and 2006; during the same period there was a rash of health complaints from local residents. The health effects of VOCs are largely unquantified, so any causal relationship is difficult to ascertain; however, some of these chemicals are suspected carcinogens and neurotoxins.[22] Investigators from the Colorado School of Public Health performed a study in Garfield regarding potential adverse health effects, and concluded that residents near gas wells might suffer chemical exposures, accidents from industry operations, and psychological impacts such as depression, anxiety and stress. This study (the only one of its kind to date) was never published, owing to disagreements between community members and the drilling company over the study's methods.[28] In 2010 the film Gasland premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The filmmaker claims that chemicals including toxins, known carcinogens, and heavy metals polluted the ground water near well sites in Pennsylvania, Wyoming, and Colorado.[29]
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Gas reserves are far below water tables in complete different strata...five thousand to 20,000 feet, far , far deeper than any aquifer.
But you keep drinking that Kool Aid.
We keep being assured the water is safe, despite what our noses keep telling us.
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Gas reserves are far below water tables in complete different strata...five thousand to 20,000 feet, far , far deeper than any aquifer.
Please explain this, then http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEtgvwllNpg [youtube.com]
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I asked Dr. Anthony Ingraffea, the D. C. Baum Professor of Engineering at Cornell University, whose research for more than 30 years has involved structural mechanics, finite element methods, and fracture mechanics: "Can drilling and/or hydraulic fracturing liberate biogenic natural gas into a fresh water aquifer?"
His reply: "Yes, definitely. The drilling process itself can induce migration of biogenic gas by disturbance of previously blocked migration paths through joint sets or faults, or by puncturing pressurized biogenic gas pockets and allowing migration through an as-yet un-cemented annulus, or though a faulty cement job. The hydraulic fracturing process is less likely to cause migration of biogenic gas; however, the cumulative effect of many, closely spaced, relatively shallow laterals, each fracked (and possibly re-fracked) numerous times, could very well create rock mass disturbances that could, as noted above, open previously blocked migration paths through joint sets or faults."
You no better then that right? Because you heard something from a natural gas public relations firm that agrees with your political ideas.
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All wells are sleeved.
Think about it, you spend all this money drilling a well thousands and thousands of feet to reach whatever you are after and you'd just let seep away into sand formations on the way up?
Then there's the pesky thing about the hold collapsing on itself when you withdraw the drilling pipe.
ALL wells use casing.
Interesting idea: (Score:2, Interesting)
What about doing something like fracking, except using non-toxic chemicals, for the purpose of intentionally causing minor earthquakes to release the stress that would otherwise lead to a big one? I bet many Pacific Rim countries would be interested in gradually defusing major earthquakes...
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I was thinking the same thing. I think the main problem with this would be the legal issues. Unlike a controlled burn or avalanche control work, it would be very hard to predict the duration, magnitude and scale of the quakes being released. Just releasing the earthquake in the first place would be hard, and if you finally score and manage to release a lot of tectonic pressure, you wouldn't want to be the one that everyone could point to as the source of the resulting damage.
Project Stormfury [wikipedia.org] ran into th
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It's been theorized and even tried. (Although that's really an entirely different process. Fracking causes earthquakes by shifting the ground. What you are talking about is trying to let the ground shift in a more controlled manner.)
The problem is you are just making it easier for the stress to be released. That doesn't guarantee smaller earthquakes as a result...
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Well, yes it does. For the quake to occur naturally, more energy will need to be applied in order to overcome the static friction. If you lower the static friction threshold, the plates act without adding the additional energy that more time and tectonic activity would build on behind it.
The problem is that the energy already there to be released might already be bad news. It's still better news than waiting, though.
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Then by all means, leave ^_^
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Do not give the trolls breeding advice.
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The parent is called a troll. What you're doing is called feeding the trolls.
It is usually advised to not feed the trolls.
Releasing pent up energy (Score:2)
However, if you're killed by a 5.x quake that wouldn't have released a 9.x until 100 years after your normal lifespan, Do you care?
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While that happens (subsidence), this is not what we are thinking of. Consider the fluid being injected to be WD-40. You've got a sticky joint that won't move without adding a lot more pressure.
You can add more pressure (leave it be and let it release when it would without interference) or you can lube it up and release the tension that's in it now.
Both might suck, but you can argue that the latter sucks less than the former (overall) even though the other might not apply within a geologically significant a
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This is in England, not an earthquake zone, not a volcanic zone, we have one of the most stable tectonic areas on the planet ...
the area in question has now had 2 quakes in a month, the UK as a whole gets only 30 a year in total, and all lower in magnitude then these ...
The earthquakes were caused by fracking and nothing else ..
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However, if you're killed by a 5.x quake that wouldn't have released a 9.x until 100 years after your normal lifespan, Do you care?
How could you care? You're dead!
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I'm clueless in these matters but trying to read up on it mostly lands me on activist sites that extoll the evils that is inherent to fracking and sources that don't really go into detail as to what causes the earthquakes, etc.
So my basic question would be, in relationship to your statement, whether fracking condenses the release of that potential energy.
I.e. if the energy is in the shale, does it actually build up to one big quake, or does it continually get released in a multitude of earthquakes of magnit
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However, if you're killed by a 5.x quake that wouldn't have released a 9.x until 100 years after your normal lifespan, Do you care?
Not any more.
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You are right. The headline should say it triggered an earthquake not caused.
I've suggested lubricating fault lines as a means to eliminate earthquakes. I am a mechanical engineer and earthquakes are a variation of a type of movement known as stick slip. It happens where you have seals like pistons. You have a static coefficient of friction much higher than the dynamic. So force and energy is stored up in your system trying to overcome the static friction. Once it starts moving the system lurches rapidly r
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You are right. The headline should say it triggered an earthquake not caused.
I've suggested lubricating fault lines as a means to eliminate earthquakes. I am a mechanical engineer and earthquakes are a variation of a type of movement known as stick slip. It happens where you have seals like pistons. You have a static coefficient of friction much higher than the dynamic. So force and energy is stored up in your system trying to overcome the static friction. Once it starts moving the system lurches rapidly releasing the energy. They key to getting rid of it is reducing the friction. Better seals like Teflon can help as can lubrication in some applications.
It seems to me that lubricating the fault could make the energy release much more quickly - instead of a "slow" grind between plates, you have a lubrication assisted quick slide, and perhaps even a greater energy release than if the plates have been allowed to slide naturally since there's less friction resisting the movement.
So this may change the dynamic of the quake in such a way to make it much worse since the energy would be released over a shorter period of time making the quake more intense.
Testing i
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Not quite getting the analogy. Are you saying that an earthquake is like crashing a car into a wall at 200 mph whereas fracking is like carefully disassembling a car piece by piece? Why wouldn't you want to do it the careful less damaging way (excluding other factors like contamination, which is outside the bounds of the analogy)?
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Why wouldn't you want to do it the careful less damaging way (excluding other factors like contamination, which is outside the bounds of the analogy)?
Because it makes money for EVIL OIL COMPANIES!
Not Even Peer Reviewed (Score:2)
Really Slashdot? You could not wait until at least peer review?
"The report is now entering peer review. "We want it to subjected to maximum scrutiny; it's not in Cuadrilla's interest to discover a problem down the road," Smith says."
RTFA? Not unless you pay (Score:3)
Really Slashdot? You could not wait until at least peer review?
By the time an article gets peer-reviewed, it's often put under a paywall.
Quakes are going to happen. (Score:2)
We manage potential in other areas, such as lighting forest fires and burning off brush before the potential problem grows too great.
Couldn't it be said that fracking will, at worst, cause an impending quake to happen sooner and thus it will have less potential?
Ignorance out in full force again... (Score:3, Informative)
Oy. Both the EPA and GWPC have said that there is no proven link between fracking and contaminated groundwater. 99% of what is sent into the earth is plain, non-potable water. The other 1% is made up of various chemicals of varying toxicity, the most toxic two chemicals making up about 0.1% of the hundreds of thousands of gallons of liquid sent down.
The case correlating fracking to groundwater contamination is as strong as Jenny McCarthy's claims correlating vaccines to autism. /Geologist who works for a major oil company.
Re:Ignorance out in full force again... (Score:4, Insightful)
So you're obviously a non-biased source.
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OP here. So the Environmental Protection Agency and Ground Water Protection Council are biased in favor of big oil? My comments are based on THEIR studies, not my own, not my employer's.
Please, explain your brilliant reasoning or is it just a big government conspiracy?
Amazing that the most ignorant comments get modded up. Group-think at its finest.
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No conspiracy, but normal regulatory capture. Happens with near every other government regulatory agency/
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Which is so unconcerned about fracking that they just released this month their plan to conduct an in-depth study of the effect of fracking on groundwater.
Ground Water Protection Council
Which is so unconcerned about fracking that they created a database to track chemicals used in hydrofracking at the individual well level.
Amazing that the most ignorant comments get modded up. Group-think at its finest.
"You should believe this because these groups believe i
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So you're obviously a non-biased source.</quote>
So who am I to believe, The guy who spent 10 years getting his masters, or the guy who just spent 2 hours watching a movie?
It really is basic Geology, Ask someone from the USGS if you really want an unbias source. Seriously give them a call.
For example, The Marcellus Shale, ranges from a depth of 3000-7000 feet. The thing is Freshwater usually only goes down a few hundred feet.
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What's terrible is that your statement is more accurate when read without a tone of irony. Oil company employees have a practically faultless record of being paid shills. Though mainly only people willing to be paid shills take that kind of work.
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Pointing out bias is not the same thing as calling someone a liar. If he works for a major oil company, it is a non-debatable fact that he has a bias.
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So, what you're actually telling us is that these companies are injecting thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals into the earth and the ground water. That's not so reassuring...
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You're an Anonymous Coward. Sign your name and the oil corp and we'll believe that you are who you say. BTW, it's more like hundreds of millions of gallons of fracking fluids. That's millions of gallons of toxic chemicals, even if your percentages are true. An actual geologist working for a major oil corp who isn't lying would have said millions.
But even so, what does it matter that the EPA and the GWPC have been bribed and bullied by oil corps to lie to us about fracking safety?
Oil corps have earned only d
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What are these two most toxic chemicals?
I ask because if they something like cadmium then 0.1% of 100,000 gallons would be 100 gallons more than enough to poison a great many people. I am not suggesting it is cadmium only that even such small quantities can be enough to poison thousands or millions of people if the substance is toxic enough.
The EPA and GWPC are little more than mouth pieces for industry. If we at least made the ingredients of these fluids public knowledge I would be a lot more comfortable.
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Some of your former teachers -- your former professors at universities -- are stating that they have concerns over fracking. I guess that is just a minor detail. Just believe what you want to believe so that you can think of yourself as a good person.
Doesn't inducing small quakes prevent large ones? (Score:2)
If I understand correctly, quakes are the result of releasing pressure that builds up along fault lines. Wouldn't releasing this pressure in small increments prevent it from being released all at once? Otherwise a quake is going to happen sooner or later anyway. Better to be 10 small quakes than 1 large quake, right?
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Probably. The trick is that we'd need to know the right places to set off our small quakes, and how big we'd need to make them. I like to think that if we actually had the kind of knowledge to do that stuff safely, we'd already be using it right now to accurately predict earthquakes.
Uninformed geo-
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Aren't fault lines the equivalent of tumors already?
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No, there's no science concluding that small quakes overall reduce large quakes, rather than add to stresses that make large quakes larger and/or more likely. Some science suggests maybe, but even there only on some fault systems, not necessarily on others.
We are messing with major consequences that we don't understand. For short term gain, gambling against long term losses - that will be paid by someone who didn't make the short term profits. As usual.
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I don't see how they could make it worse purely on the grounds of seismic activity. Sure the contamination might be enough to nix the whole idea, but I have a hard time seeing how "deflating" the fault line can possibly be worse in any way than waiting for it to "pop".
Earthquakes (Score:2)
Let's point out that the earthquakes were so small they can not be felt by man, are barely detectable, and these size quakes happen all the time naturally too.
As for groundwater pollution- this has happened, albeit doesn't usually- and there are non-toxic equivalents to the toxic chemicals that are *sometimes* used. Fracking need not use toxic chemical.
Natural Gas, whereas it is no "solar" or "wind farm", is overall much cleaner than oil or coal. (or at least can be if they regulate the chemicals used whe
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Indeed. The British government would rather than people freeze in the dark -- or send a ton of money to the Russians to buy their gas -- than risk some slight tremors that no-one but a few scientists will notice.
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Are they fracking anywhere near the nuclear power plant? If not- I wouldn't worry. If they are- there may be cause to not frack near sensitive sites- even though any quakes likely to be caused are expected to be extremely minor and not even noticable by mankind (except by hyper-sensitive equipment designed to detect them).
Groundwater is usually not affected- and there are non-toxic technologies available that we should concentrate on.
Geothermal's great. I'm all for geothermal energy. Realistically thoug
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Are they fracking anywhere near the nuclear power plant? If not- I wouldn't worry. If they are- there may be cause to not frack near sensitive sites- even though any quakes likely to be caused are expected to be extremely minor and not even noticable by mankind (except by hyper-sensitive equipment designed to detect them).
I think that most people would consider their home to be a "sensitive site" that they don't want any man-made earthquakes happening close to. If a Nuclear Plant that's supposedly hardened against earthquakes can't handle a quake, is my daughter's school any safer?
Just the First Confession (Score:3)
It's surprising that this petrofuel corp is admitting anything at all. The truth will turn out to be even worse, as these energy corps always hide and lie as long as physically possible. They use the same PR corps that kept tobacco's death and destruction officially secret and off the liability lists for generations.
Soon enough we'll hear about even more damage the drill babies know they're doing. And then eventually, if we don't stop this destructive profit extraction, we'll hear about all the other damage they insisted on ignoring. But of course then it will be too late to matter. Which is always the drill babies' main strategy.
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But of course then it will be too late to matter. Which is always the drill babies' main strategy.
Indeed, the power brokers will have walked away with the money, and we will be left to clean up the mess they made of our lives. It is a timeless formula.
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A 1987 EPA study in WV. "the residual fracturing fluid migrated into (the resident's) water well."
"A spokesperson for the EPA would not directly address the apparent contradiction but said in an email that the agency is now reviewing the 1987 report and that 'the agency has identified several circumstances where contamination of wells is alleged to have occurred and is reviewing those cases in depth.'"
That 2004 EPA "s
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You're a liar, as the other posts citing research showing fracking damage amply demonstrate. Here you're using the weasel words "no unexpected effects" from fracking. So now it's safe to assume that oil corps expected the damage.
I'm certainly not going to base my views on your 44 word Anonymous Coward Slashdot shallow denial. Except my view that you're a liar.
pondering the issue... (Score:2)
First off I can't believe that drilling causes earthquakes. Earthquakes are caused by slippage during the course of tectonic plate movements. So saying that drilling "causes" earthquakes is silly.
What I can believe is that it causes quakes to come earlier and smaller, by slightly lowering the stiction between the plates. Looked at this way, it would seem to be a benefit rather than an evil disaster-maker? I think most places would much prefer to have a handful of 4.0's instead of the occasional 6.5.
Afai
So then (Score:2)
I bet... (Score:3)
Millions of BSG fans are laughing at this headline :D
Insurance? (Score:2)
In the UK, if you're a driver, you're compelled to have third party insurance in case you cause damage. If you're a professional you generally want to have professional indemnity for similar reasons. Shouldn't companies engaging in risky practices such as these be forced to have appropriate cover in case they cause a massive earthquake as a pre-requisite for doing so?
Non-conventional extraction ? (Score:2)
Non-conventional extraction of hydrocarbons is the next wave of production, including natural gas and oil – at least according to its advocates. One of the most controversial of the technologies being used is hydraulic fracture drilling,
The entire post is nonsense. Fracturing has been used extensively for over sixty years. It's hardly new or "non-conventional". It only became controversial when the AlGore fanboys realized how much natural gas is available in this country.
Water wells that are contaminated with natural gas are easy to find in many parts of the country, especially where coal is found close to the surface. I had an uncle in eastern Ohio who tried to drill a water well on his farm but hit gas instead; he capped it and used
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Your guess is based on ignorance and fear. Thanks for remaining anonymous so no one would goof on your unscientific beliefs.
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First off, it wasn't a DC quake, it was a Mineral, VA quake that was felt in DC. Second, there is a history of earthquakes in the area dating back to colonial times. Third, there was no fracking going on in the area.
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welcome our new tremor overlords
Underlords?
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Your heart is true, you're a pal and a cosmonaut.
I believe the word you are looking for there is confidant...
Is that you Yuri?
I disagree.
Iz glorious day in People's Republic!
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I've never understood why we are so damn eager to extract more substances from the Earth, while poisoning Suface, Ground Water and Air - when we should be punishing those who waste resources. I commute and see an absolutely insane number of BIG vehicles on the road, every day - some I have seen for months or years - big pickups or SUVs, some with those horribly inefficient (for road use) oversize wheels. They are in competition with every other vehicle owner for gas/petrol, that they choose to put $100 in
Re:I hope UK Regulates better than TX and USA (Score:5, Interesting)
I've never understood why we are so damn eager to extract more substances from the Earth.
It's because capitalism is a one way process; it's not a system.(*)
It takes a finite resource (such as oil reserves, or coal, or iron) which belongs to all of us (we all share one planet) and assigns it to an owner (generally via opaque means rooted in corruption, even in the US). This owner then exploits it to produce a profit. Some of which might come back to us but most of which is shared out amongst an elite as part of their ongoing petty powergames. This is the same elite who have shaped our society for several hundred years now to believe that making profit is an unquestionable good and that growth is something that can happen infinitely.
The damn eagerness is just the effect of long-term greed; and while profit is king this process will continue until all the natural resources are depleted, and the human population falls or otherwise adapts to the level which renewable supplies can accommodate.
But I doubt if many come here for a lecture on Marxism.
(*) Economics, on the other hand, IS a system.
- Capitalism is the dominant processes that currently operates in the economic system. Without a counterprocess to resupply it, however, it will inevitably run down as it's resources run out.
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The argument isn't about it being done right, it is about it being done wrong.
It is when fracking is done wrong that water tables are being contaminated, not with the fracking chemicals, but by the natural gas.
When you got natural gas in the local water table after fracking when there was no issue with natural gas before, then there is a problem.