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Fracking Disclosure Rules Approved In CO
ExE122 writes "Colorado has approved new measures taking a tough stance on the disclosure of chemicals used in fracking. The new law is 'requiring companies to disclose the concentrations of chemicals in addition to the chemicals themselves.' Fracking is a controversial method of natural gas extraction that raises concerns about health and safety issues to surrounding communities. This measure is said to be tougher than similar measures passed in Texas earlier this year."
I live in Colorado (although not near any drilling sites), and I approve of this. Public safety > trade secrets.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
Well, it's one thing to have your customers voluntarily ingest a "secret sauce" product, and another one entirely to force everyone nearby to. So chalk it up to shades of gray. Though with the general level of rampant stupidity among the consuming public, one could build a case that volunteerism shouldn't exempt the formar case, either.
Someone had to do it.
"In 2011 Colorado passed a law forcing drilling companies to disclose what just what the hell they were pumping into the ground in massive quantities."
Progress!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
For a nice audio visual aid to fracking:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=timfvNgr_Q4
To see what it can do to your water supply:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U01EK76Sy4A&feature=player_detailpage
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Yeah sure, that's why you posted anonymously with a talking points bullet list.
Soon enough? Fracturing has been done in the United States since 1947.
And if you think today's fracking is anything like what was done in 1947, you have no business in this conversation. Industry misinformation like this is not relevant to the discussion.
For a long time, the food industry has had to label their products indicating what exactly they contained. Trade secrets must take second place to public safety.
Why is this not obvious to our legislators?
Just because it isn't new doesn't mean it can't be dangerous. sheesh.
Vehicles didn't cause air pollution in Los Angeles until there were a million of them.
Infecting the Ogallala reservoir with 10ccs of anything except plutonium isn't going to poison that many people. But dumping in ten million gallos of almost anything will affect the water.
It isn't the use of any resource that causes issues; it is only the overuse (by definition).
Seriously - what are the chances of these chemicals migrating upward through a couple miles of solid rock
Well, that would be kind of hard to independently assess without actually knowing what chemicals to test the water for, which is kind of the point of the law under discussion.
Someone had to do it.
>> I'm glad I live on granite.
Enjoy your radon.
Hydraulic fracturing for stimulation of oil and natural gas wells was first used in the United States in 1947.[2][3] It was first used commercially by Halliburton in 1949,[2] and because of its success in increasing production from oil wells was quickly adopted, and is now used worldwide in tens of thousands of oil and natural gas wells annually. The first industrial use of hydraulic fracturing was as early as 1903, according to T.L. Watson.[4] Before that date, hydraulic fracturing was used at Mt. Airy Quarry, near Mt Airy, North Carolina where it was (and still is) used to separate granite blocks from bedrock.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing_in_the_United_States
OK, so it's been around awhile..
With the explosive growth of natural gas wells in the US, researcher Valerie Brown predicted in 2007 that "public exposure to the many chemicals involved in energy development is expected to increase over the next few years, with uncertain consequences."[24] As development of natural gas wells in the U.S. since the year 2000 has increased, so too have claims by private well owners of water contamination. This has prompted EPA and others to re-visit the topic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing
and it's getting more prevalent...
I don't think anybody is saying that it's "suddenly" causing problems. It seems like the concern is the growth. As much as I dislike using a car analogy, I think if we hadn't have chosen automobiles as our primary form of transportation, we wouldn't have emission standards and the like, because what makes it an issue is quantity. We'd be fools to not question or investigate this, especially since fracking is questioned international. It's being investigated in many countries, and it's already banned/stopped in others. What if they're right?
I'm a painter from the 1940s that has been using lead paint for 30 years. My resume includes several hundred houses painted without anybody getting sick. People act like this is a new phenomenon - lead paint has been around since WW1. Paint is using lead that his been around for millions of years. Seriously - what are the chances that of this paint crumbling up and being inhaled?
The ONLY time "lead" can pose a hazard to people is when you eat it. If you have small children, some paint chips may get eaten. Here's a short list of activities that are a greater risk to children:
1. Playing in the street. How many cars and busses are near you, compared to lead paint chips?
2. Taking candy from strangers that is poisoned.People actually do that.
3. Old, abandoned, or neglected animals. Rabies happens.
4. Railroad derailments. Each locomotive can easily squash your child.
5. Pedophiles.
6. Running with scissors.
Please encourage folks to remove their tinfoil hats. There's nothing to see here.
Read the recently released EPA report, or at least reporting on it. Wells which had been pure for years have suddenly had massive influxes of hydrocarbons which cannot be explained by bacteria means. Chemicals used in fracking are also showing up in these drinking wells in significant quantities, with no other plausible source. Fracking is polluting our water table and should be stopped immediately.
Evidence that this is different?
Energy Policy Act of 2005 - specifically the Halliburton Loophole exemptions to the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Fracking for gas didn't "take off" until that loophole was passed - so clearly SOMETHING they are doing is different that the loophole enables them to do.
The problem is that the same exemption allows them to hide what they are doing.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Here's some actual sarcasm (the story about the kitten is an actual claim I've heard made): Nice source. The document you point to is entitled "Horizontal Fracking - Unacceptable Risks" and its thesis is "Do we really want this in Michigan???" Yes, with three question marks. This is not a scientific journal. But, let's continue our research and find out whether the claim is valid.
Taking the one item from the list you pointed to, I find propublica.org, which is a website whose first-listed "major project" is "Fracking - Gas Drilling's Environmental Threat." Their perspective on the world is clearly prejudiced against fracking, but even a broken clock is right twice a day, so we continue.
A little searching finds this article as the one most likely intended to be cited by your source. The reference there to the event in question is, in full, "In another case, benzene, a chemical sometimes found in drilling additives, was discovered throughout a 28-mile long aquifer in Wyoming."
There is no citation to when or where this event occurred, other than somewhere in Wyoming. No information about who reported the event or investigated it. No information on whether benzene, which the article says is "sometimes found in drilling additives," is ever found in substances other than drilling additives. No information about how deep the aquifer is, what gas wells and depths had been drilled and fracked nearby, how far away those wells were from the aquifer, or even the slightest tidbit that would allow a person to do independent research to verify or dispute the claim. It is correlation equating to causation at its finest, and that's being generous.
"Seriously - what are the chances of these chemicals migrating upward through a couple miles of solid rock?"
Well that is the entire point of the fracking in the first place, to get chemicals to rise to the surface through miles of rock.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Evidences that it's different? NO? I didn't think so.
Evidence? Anyone who has spent 10 minutes caring about this issue knows there are significant differences. Let me save you a few keystrokes on Google and start with much deeper wells, moving from vertical wells to horizontal ones, and greatly increasing the amount of fluids used and waste generated.
Irrelevant i any case, there is no evidence fracking impacts any water supply.
You're a bit behind the times I'm afraid. Again, let me save you a trip to Google:
This information might have been out there for you years ago had Cheney not inserted his Haliburton exemption in his energy bill back in 2005.
http://www.epa.gov/region8/superfund/wy/pavillion/EPA_ReportOnPavillion_Dec-8-2011.pdf
The EPA disagrees with you.
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
My sister owns a water quality lab in Montana. Every town is required to test their water supply regularly for biological and chemical contaminants and for years they have submitted their samples via regular mail to labs like my sister's for testing. Except that the EPA has shortened the window for getting your samples in to a lab from 48 hours to 30 hours, which the Post Office cannot manage with current levels of service. UPS and FedEx don't serve many rural areas, so there is no way for many towns to test their water any more. Add in large, imminent cutbacks at the USPS, and you have a looming public health crisis as it is.
Now with the advent of fracking in the state there is a real possibility thousands of people will be poisoned by ground water contamination, but thanks to the breakdown in the testing it won't be discovered until it's far too late.
Winning more natural gas is a plus for energy independence, but if we're doing that at the cost of putting benzene into our drinking water then perhaps we need to look at other ways to generate power.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
No they intentionally drilled to the same depth as fracking operations in order to determine the extent of horizontal transfer of fracking fluids and how much fluid was left after being pumped out. This was in addition to testing at normal water well depth. Their paper lists as a regret that they were not able to drill to intermediate depths to better understand how the fluids are moving.
The majority of Encana "refutations" are pure bullshit, and the few minor issues that aren't are mentioned in the EPA report as limitations of the current study. In particular the EPA report does compare the current water well against historical values, contrary to that propaganda piece you linked.
When you're right, you're right. In 2005 the House was Republican controlled, the Senate was Republican controlled, the White House was Republican controlled and virtually nothing good got done, but here is a fine example of one very great evil getting done.
Mod parent up.
I'm not going to lie, his arguments are impossible to counter, just like the Reptilian conspiracy.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
A little science from a former Petroleum Engineer:
Fracking occur in 2 stages. In the First Stage, a series of pumping trucks are lined up and push a goopy gel into the ground, who's whole purpose is to carry grains of sand deep into the fractures created by the overpressure. The exact composition of this snot-like mixture is considered a trade secret, because of its ability to perform in stage two.
In the Second Stage, a "breaker fluid" is pumped into the well, which is supposed to instantly liquify the goop and allow it to flow out, leaving the sand grains to prop open the cracks. Opinions vary on how well this process works; I worked on the oil company side, so I can tell you, it doesn't always work. Sometimes your well is gummed up with snot, especially if they don't pump the breaker long enough.
Both the propellant and the breaker are trade secret compositions, but both probably have some interesting chemical comps.
The irony here is that an old friend of mine said that after a frack job ruined a very lucrative well, he started insisting that water and sand be the only fluids used in his frack jobs. He said the pumping companies pitched a fit, but he got some of the best, most improved fractures of his career using sand and water.