High-Tech Gas Drilling Is Fouling Drinking Water

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."

Comments

but but

[MickyTheIdiot]

but but Regulation is bad... m'kay?

Re:but but

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[maxume]

How do you get "nature done it" from "improper disposal"?

Really quite curious.

Re:but but

[rabun_bike]

Therein lies many problems. The earth's crust is not one nice consistent pancake. It has many different layers of rock and caverns as well as underwater rivers and lakes. To get to the shale you have to drill through all the other stuff. And you don't even know what you are drilling through in the first place. You just make a guess and then hope your "cement job" keeps the other layers of the earth from interaction with your dill hole. And there isn't just one hole. They drill hundreds of holes. There is no precision to this and methane gas knows no boundaries if it can find a way up the other layers of earth. What everyone is terrified of is a blow out since these drilling fluids are under intense heat and pressure and then a contamination of the aquifer with drilling fluids and potentially gas, brine, drilling fluid and even oil.

Re:but but

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they would be overwhelmed by the GAS you dumb shit. Methane is not breathable. It will kill you. It will asphyxiate you and your mother, father, daughters, wife, everyone. And you'll never smell it or know about it. You'll be dead. Just because you cannot smell something does not mean it won't hurt you.

Re:but but

[jbengt]

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, . . .

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.)

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

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.

New?

[Syssiphus]

New study? Ever seen 'Gasland'?

Re:New?

[blueg3]

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.

Documentary About Fracking

[crow_t_robot]

Gasland:
http://www.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:Basic flaw in the study as reported

[Anonymous Coward]

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:Laws are good, regulations are bad

[bit trollent]

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...

Please don't forget which political party enacted a law which legalizes the poisoning of neighborhoods and entire regions.

So we can dismiss Colorado's DNR as well?

[Shivetya]

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 those who don't agree are obviously shills.

This in the end weakens their cause because they come off as crack pots. I lived on a farm as a child in North Eastern Ohio. We changed wells three times during my twelves years of growing up there because of naturally occurring contamination. They are was very high in coal. We ran a water softener and a filter system just to have drinkable water. By drinkable I mean water that didn't taste outright odd. Toilets would have iron stains in days from cleaning.

So I am quite sure someone with a chip on their shoulder who didn't like the coal industry (or NG) in my old area could gen up a good scare story without revealing the pre existing issues.

Re:Laws are good, regulations are bad

[bit trollent]

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

I wonder if the same Republicans that exempted fracking from the clean air and clean water act blocked this bill...