EPA finds fracking chemicals in Wyoming groundwater

EPA finds fracking chemicals in Wyoming groundwater

michiganmessenger.com

A pair of environmental monitoring wells drilled deep into an aquifer in Pavillion, Wyo., contain high levels of cancer-causing compounds and at least one chemical commonly used in hydraulic fracturing, according to new water test results released yesterday by the Environmental Protection Agency.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.bbc.co.uk
www.smh.com.au
www.triplepundit.com
www.tulsaworld.com

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
Earthquake Swarm in Arkansas Intensifies. Memphis, Tennessee could be epicenter for the next big one
New Swarm of Earthquakes in Arkansas
Robinesque Ruminations
Resource Bibliography for Earthquake Swarm in Arkansas Intensifies. Memphis, Tennessee could be epic

This practice (fracking) has been going on for quite some time and has recently come to the public's awareness due to it's relationship to earthquakes in Arkansas (see link below) where it as sparkrd a national debate.

From the contanination of grundwater to the link established to activating long dormant faults, hydraulic fracturing poses a signifcant risk to the environment.

Yes it is a step in the process to achieving energy independance, but it has been pushed in such a way as to not take the dangers in to account in a meaningful way.

The oil and gas industry will tell you that all of these dangers are minimal andnthat the benefit far outweigh the potential risks.

I would ask everyone to ask themselves if they agree with this assessment.

michiganmessenger.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I'm surprised this information hasn't been covered up.

All this negative media coverage against fracking lately leaves me to believe that they might be trying to distract us from something bigger, like the New Madrid for example. Or even Yellowstone.

reply to post by jadedANDcynical


This is one of the most dangerous and deadly practices for the earth and for the people but energy companies like Halliburton are distorting the truth and hiding hazards to make it seem acceptable. They are pushing it on us and stand to make another KILLING both literally and figuratively. If people do not stand up and protest FRACKING and halt its eventual practice I don't hold out much hope for humans on the planet.

Fracking lobby pays $747m to stop laws

WASHINGTON: Oil and gas companies that hydraulically fracture wells and trade groups that represent them spent $US747 million to lobby federal policymakers and contribute to lawmakers' campaigns from 2001 to late 2011, an advocacy group has reported. www.smh.com.au...

We are being hosed for money in this oil thing folks, the facts are in.Too much evidence on fracking by now, this is bad for the environment, for the lands stability and for mankind. We have to start converting H2O to Hydrogen and Oxygen and quit bitching about how much that costs. Hydrogen is an awesome source of energy. I also believe in electro magnetic devices being able to tap the energy of a magnet that sits still while magneto particles spin off its body in provable directions. That physics is irrefutable and we have been fed magic tricks to avoid telling us it is so when energy devices that get the patents we could all use are held back.

Originally posted by Truth4Thought
I'm surprised this information hasn't been covered up.

All this negative media coverage against fracking lately leaves me to believe that they might be trying to distract us from something bigger, like the New Madrid for example. Or even Yellowstone.

Distract us from something bigger?

Right now there is nothing bigger than this disastrous news.

FRACKING is far more dangerous, complicated and sinister a practice than you have been led to believe.

What they are distracting us from is the real hazards of FRACKING a horrible practice which digs deep in the earth and blows up shale deposits to extract oil that is pressed in the rock. This method was devised by the likes of Halliburton and Cheney. This same party faithful (bowing down to oil giants) is calling any and all investments in alternative energy a "left wing conspiracy." Enuff said.


I WOULD RATHER SIT IN THE DARK - THAN GIVE MY PERMISSION FOR FRACKING ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET.

reply to post by jadedANDcynical


I read the EPA report and the finding of benzene and 2-Butoxyethanol, while not something to be taken lightly, is not as conclusive as the author would have us believe. 2BE is found in hundreds of consumer and industrial products and without evidence of other agents associated with fracking, namely high levels of chlorides, calcium, phosphates and other TDS (total dissolved solids), this contamination could have come from any number of other sources like an abandoned underground fuel storage tank. Additionally without baseline water quality samples to compare against, its very difficult to positively link contamination with any specific activity unless all the markers are present, and in this instance that does not appear to be the case.

SirM
Kudos to you're idea but let us face reality about the true oil business thing we see played out the last 120 years or so. There is no doubt they have money to control the spread of competition. Nor is there any doubt as to who has benefited the most have been tribesmen from the Middle East who hate the modern world. There is something sinister IMHO at continuing to ignore true progress in energy production since the day solar was introduced. All business models in history show products that have a long shelf life and cost a lot to make become cheaper to make as more demand for them. Solar panel manufacturing by greedy political cronies are making it appear unproffitable. Easy to do when you pay the top dogs mega bucks while not actually producing anything to sell. People see the money swirl down the bowl, the media deflects the real reason is a Soros or whomever getting their reward for paying into the campaign. Thus my comment they are hosing us.

Originally posted by SirMike
reply to post by jadedANDcynical

 

Additionally without baseline water quality samples to compare against, its very difficult to positively link contamination with any specific activity unless all the markers are present, and in this instance that does not appear to be the case.

Add herein lies much of the problem. The oil and gas companies have not bothered to test in areas prior to beginning he farcturing. Thus there will never be a way to know what contaminants have been introuced due to the process.

There are hunderds of thousands of wells nation wide when you consider the various types. It is a foregone conclusion that if even a miniscule percentage of these wells were to contaminate nearby grondwater (never mind the danger represented by earthquakes) that we are needlessly endangering portions of our water supply.

Not trying to ramble so pardon if it seems so.

It is my understanding that a solar panel will be working at 50% efficeincy in 100 years. How much will electricity cost in 100 years? Will a one time fee, maintenance and battery replacement be too high in that time? I think not. See "The Joseph Newman Device" if you want a documentable case of a good idea with magntes being held back.

Originally posted by jadedANDcynical

Originally posted by SirMike
reply to post by jadedANDcynical

 

Additionally without baseline water quality samples to compare against, its very difficult to positively link contamination with any specific activity unless all the markers are present, and in this instance that does not appear to be the case.

Add herein lies much of the problem. The oil and gas companies have not bothered to test in areas prior to beginning he farcturing. Thus there will never be a way to know what contaminants have been introuced due to the process.

There are hunderds of thousands of wells nation wide when you consider the various types. It is a foregone conclusion that if even a miniscule percentage of these wells were to contaminate nearby grondwater (never mind the danger represented by earthquakes) that we are needlessly endangering portions of our water supply.

Thats not entirely true. While companies are not legally required to take baseline water data, many to do to protect themselves agains future litigation. For example, according to the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Act of 1984 operators are presumed guilty and liable for any groundwater contamination near their drilling operations. Because of this nearly every well drilled in Pennsylvania has water quality reports taken before drilling begins so the operator can defend itself in a civil proceeding.

@SirMike, thank you for the information regarding PA's oil and gas companies voluntarily performing pre-drilling tests. If all energy companies performed such tests perhaps we would be a bit closer to a solution to this dilemma.

In the meantime, following up on the original story, here are some excerpts from an article in the Boise Weekly:

The information released yesterday by the EPA was limited to raw sampling data: The agency did not interpret the findings or make any attempt to identify the source of the pollution. From the start of its investigation, the EPA has been careful to consider all possible causes of the contamination and to distance its inquiry from the controversy around hydraulic fracturing.

Still, the chemical compounds the EPA detected are consistent with those produced from drilling processes, including one -- a solvent called 2-Butoxyethanol (2-BE) -- widely used in the process of hydraulic fracturing. The agency said it had not found contaminants such as nitrates and fertilizers that would have signaled that agricultural activities were to blame.

The wells also contained benzene at 50 times the level that is considered safe for people, as well as phenols --another dangerous human carcinogen -- acetone, toluene, naphthalene and traces of diesel fuel.

The EPA said the water samples were saturated with methane gas that matched the deep layers of natural gas being drilled for energy. The gas did not match the shallower methane that the gas industry says is naturally occurring in water, a signal that the contamination was related to drilling and was less likely to have come from drilling waste spilled above ground.

Diesel fuel is also a component sometimes used in fracking fluid, but with the current protections in place for oil and gas companies (google the phrase "haliburton loophole"), there is no way to know for certain exactly what is contained in the fluids.

The signature of the methane is also quite telling in regards to where the contamination is sourced.


Colorado is taking steps to appease the public, but the proposed rules amount to a paper tiger due to this:

The rule still allows energy companies to prevent fracking chemicals labeled as trade secrets to be revealed to the public.

"Instead of identifying chemicals by name or by concentration, they'd simply list them on the disclosure sheet as 'trade secret,' " Neslin said.

“They’d still have to identify the chemical family to which it belongs.”

He said a very small number of chemicals used in fracking fluid are labeled as trade secrets.

Companies would be required to reveal the chemicals listed as trade secrets to state regulators and health-care providers upon request.

Source article in the Coloradoan

reply to post by newcovenant


Why do you attribute fracking to Halliburton and Cheney? The practice of fracking has been in existence in the US since the 1940's. Dick Cheney was born in 1941 and probably did not even know of Halliburton until he was in his teens...

Looking a little closer at Pennsylvania, we findnsome interesting results in the investigation. An article in Scientific American published May 9, 2011

The researchers discovered methane in from 51 of the 60 wells tested—that is not out of the ordinary. A small amount of methane from both deep and biological sources is present in most of the aquifers in this region of Pennsylvania and New York State. By measuring the ratio of radioactive carbon present in the methane contamination, however, the researchers determined that in drinking water wells near active natural gas wells, the methane was old and therefore fossil natural gas from the Marcellus Shale, rather than more freshly produced methane. This marks the first time that drinking water contamination has been definitively linked to fracking.

emphasis mine

This following a "report" on Marcellus Drilling News from February 2011.

Geologists at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Mineral Resources Management, which oversees fossil fuel drilling and fracking, maintain that no groundwater contamination has taken place in any of the 80,000 fracked wells in Ohio, and that strict state regulations mandate cement casing within a well to isolate underground aquifers from the fracking taking place several thousand feet below them. Also required are proper wastewater disposal and site remediation when wells stops producing.

Reading through the comments provides me a chuckle or three.

Originally posted by jeichelberg
reply to post by newcovenant

 

Why do you attribute fracking to Halliburton and Cheney? The practice of fracking has been in existence in the US since the 1940's. Dick Cheney was born in 1941 and probably did not even know of Halliburton until he was in his teens...

Well perhaps.......

Safety First, Fracking Second, The Editors, Scientific American: A decade ago layers of shale lying deep underground supplied only 1 percent of America’s natural gas. Today they provide 30 percent. Drillers are rushing to hydraulically fracture, or “frack,” shales in a growing list of U.S. states. ... The benefits come with risks, however, that state and federal governments have yet to grapple with. Public fears are growing about contamination of drinking-water supplies from the chemicals used in fracking and from the methane gas itself. Field tests show that those worries are not unfounded. ... Yet states have let companies proceed without adequate regulations.

Scientific advisory panels at the Department of Energy and the EPA have enumerated ways the industry could improve and have called for modest steps, such as establishing maximum contaminant levels allowed in water for all the chemicals used in fracking. Unfortunately, these recommendations do not address the biggest loophole of all.

In 2005 Congress—at the behest of then Vice President Dick Cheney​, a former CEO of gas driller Halliburton—exempted fracking from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Congress needs to close this so-called Halliburton loophole, as a bill co-sponsored by New York State Representative Maurice Hinchey would do. economistsview.typepad.com...

reply to post by newcovenant


The EPA never coverd HF under the SFDA. They were sued in 97 by an environmental group that wanted HF classified as deep well injection waste disposal and while the district judge didnt go so far as to order the EPA to classify HF as deep well injection waste disposal it did order the EPA to perform a study of HF to determine if it should relcassify HF so it would be covered under the SFDA.

The EPA spent six years studying it and came out with a report on HF in 2004 that concluded HF did not pose a significant enough threat to ground water to warrant its reclassification.

The so called "Halliburton Loophole" was written in 2005 based off this report.

The "Halliburton Loophole" makes for a nice soundbyte, but its not based in reality.

What'cha gonna drink when the water's turnin' black?
Where ya gonna go when they're done with the frack?
Baby wants it's babba,
baby wants a babba
What'cha gonna do? What'cha gonna do?
Baby wants its babba,
baby wants a babba.
but she don't like goo.
and she don't like you.

My water's got a shimmy, my water's got a sheen.
No use doing laundry 'cause nothing's coming clean.
Took a glass to the mayor and said, "Here, have a drink."
He just shook his head. Man, it makes you think.

Norma's got a well and her well went boom,
It could have been much worse, coulda been her tomb.
Louie had some cows, tried to be the wiser,
Tried to tap the ground, got himself a geyser.

What'cha gonna drink when the water's turning black?
Where ya gonna go when they're done with the frack?
Baby wants its babba,
baby wants a badda.
What'cha gonna do? What'cha gonna do?
Baby wants its babba,
baby wants a babba.
But she don't like goo.
and she don't like you.

The town we had a meeting, they came from miles around.
All had heard the rumble, the shaking of the ground.
One man says he's listening, the other says, "I know."
Damn shame it's way too late, when my water starts to glow.

Now it's just Perrier and water-loads by the truck,
Called my man in Washington but he don't give a flying
Once she's gone- she ain't ever never coming back
Once she's gone- she's gone like the frack.

What'cha gonna drink when the water's turning black?
Where ya gonna go when they're done with the frack?
Baby wants its babba,
baby wants a babba
What'cha gonna do? What'cha gonna do?
Baby wants its babba,
baby wants a babba.
But she don't like goo.
and she don't like you.

Follow up:

It seems as though the Mid-Ohio Valley Health Department is beginning to realize that this practice (fracking) is not quite as rosy as the industry would have us believe. Good for them, or more specifically, good for Dr. Richard A. Wittberg, Executive Director.

From the Marietta Times:

Claim that fracking is safe is misleading

What a responsible company will typically do and what all drillers are required to do by law are two different things. Both Ohio and West Virginia are scrambling to catch up with how to regulate this industry. Adequate regulations are not in place yet.

emphasis mine

Now why does this not surprise me? Regulations trying to catch up to technology that has outstripped the regulatory authorities. Not to mention wondering what corners may be cut in the name of profit.

I believe Dr. Chase is correct that leaks from the well casings that contaminate the groundwater are rare now due to improvements in the technology. However ...

How often do they have to occur to warrant restraint until the technology is perfected or regulated to the best of our ability?

How many times? I believe that once is one too many, but that's me.

While this escaped natural gas is a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming, what should raise concerns are the extremely dangerous carcinogens like benzene that are part of raw natural gas.

This didn't even occur to me, In my concerns around fracking (toxins in groundwater and contributing to seismic instability) the thought of what else could be leaking from the ground (natural gas is composed of many compounds toxic to biological life) never really entered my mind.

Dr. Chase points out that there have been no documented cases of ground water contamination in Ohio due to fracking. Officials in environmental protection have told me that by industry's definition, it will never happen. Where contamination may have occurred, industry denies their involvement, and it is difficult to prove that they are. There have been no studies in peer reviewed journals verifying the safety of fracking. We are rushing forward with little regard for the long term.

"...rushing forward with little regard..."

This sounds all to familiar, unfortunately.

What will it take for our "leaders" to stop for a moment and take an in depth look at what we are doing to our planet?

More follow up:
Situation Normal All Fracked Up

There are more than 4,000 Marcellus wells in Pennsylvania, with projections ranging from 2,500 new wells a year to a total of more than 100,000 over the next few decades; 458 of those wells are in Washington County and 60 are in Amwell Township, to which fracking has given an injection of new income and business; it has also spurred one of the first E.P.A. investigations into fracking’s effects on rivers, streams, drinking water and human health.

Jobs and economic stimulus are all well and good but if then local biome is negatively affected, what good are the jobs and infusion of money?

At the fair, Haney ran into her next-door neighbor, Beth Voyles, 54, a horse trainer and dog breeder, who signed the lease with Haney in 2008. She told Haney that her 11 /2-year-old boxer, Cummins, had just died. Voyles thought that he was poisoned. She saw the dog drinking repeatedly from a puddle of road runoff, and she thought that the water the gas company used to wet down the roads probably had antifreeze in it. “We do not use ethylene glycol in the fracking process,” Matt Pitzarella of Range Resources told me. He also said that the dog’s veterinarian couldn’t confirm the dog had been poisoned and that another possible cause of death was cancer.

...

A month later, Haney’s dog, Hunter, also died suddenly. Soon after, Voyles called Haney to tell her that her barrel horse, Jody, was dead. Lab results revealed a high level of toxicity in her liver. Voyles sent her animals’ test results to Range Resources. In response, Range Resources wrote to Voyles to say that, as the veterinarian indicated, the horse died of toxicity of the liver, not antifreeze poisoning. The company did acknowledge that the vet suspected the horse died of poisoning by heavy metals. Subsequent tests of the Voyleses’ water supply by Range Resources revealed no heavy metals.

...
The article goes on to list several other examples of health problems with animals in the vicnity.

In Amwell Township, your opinion of fracking tends to correspond with how much money you’re making and with how close you live to the gas wells, chemical ponds, pipelines and compressor stations springing up in the area.

This mindset is not limited to the township discussed into the article. Throughout the country, people are divided on the topic along very similar lines. People who work in the industry are generally the most vocal about its benefits while also being opposed to any suggestion that there are problems associated with the practice, even when faced with evidnce from scientific reports carried out by accredited organizationsand published by the Department of Energy among others.

While walking the line, workers discovered several cracks that spilled frack water on the frozen ground. Such cracks are not unusual. “We all know they leak,” one Range employee wrote in an internal e-mail, which has become a matter of public record pending a lawsuit.

...

A man’s word means a lot here. After all, without regulation or oversight, he and other farmers worked together to do things like fence streams to keep cattle out of them.

And we'll all know how well self-regulation works, don't we?

About a year before Haney’s dog died, in the summer of 2009, she began to notice that sometimes her water was black and that it seemed to be eating away at her faucets, washing machine, hot-water heater and dishwasher. When she took a shower, the smell was terrible — like rotten eggs and diarrhea. Haney started buying bottled water for drinking and cooking, but she couldn’t afford to do the same for her animals.

Later that summer, her son, Harley, was stricken with mysterious stomach pains and periods of extreme fatigue, which sent him to the emergency room and to Pittsburgh’s Children’s Hospital a half-dozen times. “He couldn’t lift his head out of my lap,” Haney said. Early in November of the following year, after the animals died, Haney decided to have Harley tested for heavy metals and ethylene glycol. While she waited for the results, Haney called Range Resources and asked that it supply her with drinking water. The company tested her water and found nothing wrong with it. Haney’s father began to haul water to her barn.

A week later, on Haney’s 41st birthday, Harley’s test results came back. Harley had elevated levels of arsenic. Haney called Range Resources again. The company delivered a 5,100-gallon tank of drinking water, called a water buffalo, the next day. “Our policy is if you have a complaint or a concern, we’ll supply you with a water source within 24 hours,” Pitzarella of Range Resources said. He added that the company has “never seen any evidence that anyone in that household has arsenic issues.”

A phrase regarding horses and barn doors comes to mind here.

Text Their tests results showed they had small amounts of heavy metals like arsenic and industrial solvents like benzene and toluene in their blood. Dr. Philip Landrigan of Mount Sinai said that the results show evidence of exposure, but that it was difficult to determine potential health effects at the levels found. But he added: “These people are exposed to arsenic and benzene, known human carcinogens. There’s considered to be no safe levels of these chemicals.”

...

The industry acknowledges that the question of how to handle the wastewater that comes from fracking is one of its most pressing problems. In Pennsylvania this problem is particularly acute. Pennsylvania’s geological formations, unlike those of other states where natural-gas drilling has occurred, don’t allow for the usual method of disposal: injection wells that store flowback deep below the earth’s surface. Disposing of the chemical water has meant trucking it to another state or paying local treatment facilities to process it. The facilities, which are not equipped to remove salts, have often sent the frack water back into local rivers.

emphasis mine

Why does this sound familiar? Oh yeah, the nuclear power industry has a similar problem (waste disposal) that keeps getting overlooked and not included in antpu sort of comprehensie study as to the impacts of operation.

For several months, the Monongahela River, which provides most people in the Pittsburgh area with drinking water, no longer met state and federal standards. Following a request from the State of Pennsylvania, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers found it would require five times the amount of water in their reservoirs to dilute the river. It took five months to clean it up.

“Salt is a serious problem,” Rose Reilly, a water biologist for the Army Corps of Engineers, said. It has to be managed like any other pollutant. “It isn’t biodegradable.”

...

This past spring, in response to public outcry, Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection asked gas companies to stop sending flowback to treatment plants. But it was a request — not a regulation. And enacting such measures is expensive. ... “The lower you can keep the costs — of every step of the process, including pipelines and road building — the more money you’re going to make.”

Of course, profit. As much as can be made whle at the same time not wanting to "waste" any towards the mitigation of environmental impacts.

Banks have expressed reluctance to back home mortgages within up to three miles of a well. Whole towns could become brown fields, and home values would drop precipitously. Currently, companies operating in Pennsylvania pay no tax to extract gas.

This is robber barons all over again, just like what was seen at the turn of the 19th century when the railroad boom was in full swing.

Next door (to an open-air frack pond) on McAdams Road, Haney and her kids began to have intense periods of dizziness and nosebleeds. Of the three, Harley was the worst off. Haney took him to their family physician, Craig Fox, in the nearby town of Washington. Like most local doctors, Dr. Fox had never seen such symptoms before.

Haney says that Dr. Fox’s advice to her was unequivocal: “Get Harley out of that house right away. I don’t want him anywhere near there, even driving by, for 30 days.”

...

Haney finally moved the kids to live behind her parents’ home in Amity. Subsequently, the benzene and toluene levels in each of her children’s urine dropped precipitously. For Haney, who continues to return to the farm to feed the animals every evening, the benzene and toluene levels remain higher.

If you've got feathers and quacking, you've either got a duck or a hunter with decoys and a gun...