Environmental groups and some states have pushed the EPA to directly regulate methane
from fracked wells through technology - based new source performance standards.
The problem is that treating oil and gas waste
from fracked wells remains particularly tricky because the industry is still allowed to keep secret information about which chemicals drillers use when injecting fluids to crack open shale formations to release oil and gas.
If passed, the law would be the first in the state by a county legislature banning the use of the chemical - laden wastewater
from fracking wells as a road deicer.
Long - time problems associated with HHF such as major spills including from pipelines or what to do with radioactive and toxic waste water
from a fracked well have not been rectified.
Last year, for instance, an industry - funded study on the methane emissions
from fracking wells was published in the prestigious journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The industry touts the amount of potential energy that can be gained
from a fracking well relative to its «small» footprint as a major advantage of the process over conventional gas wells and coal extraction.
Plastic production wreaks havoc on people and the planet —
from fracking wells and pipelines in Pennsylvania, to air pollution from plastic plants in Scotland.
The Dominion Cove Point project would take gas
from fracking wells across Appalachia and liquefy it along the shore of the Chesapeake Bay for export to Asia.
Not exact matches
One study out of Duke University found a higher - than - average presence of methane in water
wells located close to
fracking operations, but methane in groundwater can come
from a variety of sources, including organic decomposition near the surface.
But perusing newspapers
from towns where
fracking is going on reveals how the issue refuses to die, with headlines like «Fears of Tainted Water Well Up in Colorado,» «Collateral Damage: Residents Fear Murky Effects of Energy Boom,» and «Worker Believes Cancer Caused by Fracking Fluids» appearing re
fracking is going on reveals how the issue refuses to die, with headlines like «Fears of Tainted Water
Well Up in Colorado,» «Collateral Damage: Residents Fear Murky Effects of Energy Boom,» and «Worker Believes Cancer Caused by
Fracking Fluids» appearing re
Fracking Fluids» appearing regularly.
Fleets of trucks have to make hundreds of trips to carry the
fracking fluid to and
from each
well site.
Ty Wright Bloomberg Getty Images A rig hand removes a drill pipe
from a natural gas
well at a
fracking site in Washington Township, Pa..
However, the fact that the average quantity of
frack sand used per
well has more than doubled in recent years — which has helped lower the breakeven price of U.S. shale oil — should help insulate the industry
from the worst of the oil crash.
A recent article
from Shale Plays Media highlights that just a year ago oil field
fracking operations used around 2,500 tons of sand, whereas today the new
fracking techniques call for as much as 8,000 tons of sand to be pumped into a
well.
In the first federal effort to address serious air pollution associated with
fracking, the EPA issued new air quality standards that require oil and gas companies to capture toxic and climate - altering gases
from wells, storage sites and pipelines.
The famous - among - environmentalists jug of brown «Dimock - water» comes
from a Pennsylvania town where a
fracking operation polluted nearby
wells.
«What's not being communicated
well is the economic benefits of going to 100 percent clean energy by 2030 far outweighs any economic benefits we could get
from fracking.
He said that an amendment was already planned that would extend the ban to include wastewater
from vertically drilled oil and gas
wells (which is being used elsewhere in the state for deicing roads), as
well as those using horizontal
fracking techniques.
On Wednesday, October 30, hundreds of New Yorkers
from across the state came to Albany to expose Governor Cuomo and the Department of Environmental Conservation's (DEC) proposed Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) regulations for what they are: fatally flawed, a danger to public health and our
well - being, and supportive of a massive
fracking infrastructure build out.
«I applaud the citizen protests that have kept Cuomo
from approving
fracking wells over the last four years.
In addition to Club business we will be hosting an important discussion on
Fracking and Gas Pipeline Infrastructure, as
well as presentations
from and endorsements of Civil Court and District Leader candidates.
Fracking would be banned in and around the city's watershed as
well as within 500 feet of state aquifers and on state land, including parks, forests and wildlife areas — a significant reversal
from its 2009 position.
Methane escapes
from natural gas
wells even before
fracking, according to new direct measurements
from flying over in an airplane
«By measuring naturally occurring ammonium and iodide in numerous samples
from different geological formations in the Appalachian Basin, including flowback waters
from shale gas
wells in the Marcellus and Fayetteville shale formations, we show that
fracking fluids are not much different
from conventional oil and gas wastes,» said Jennifer S. Harkness, lead author of the study and a PhD student at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment.
«It's not only
fracking fluids that pose a risk; produced water
from conventional, or non-fracked, oil and gas
wells also contains high levels of radium, which is a radioactive element.
Carbon dioxide emissions
from power plants could be put to
good use, preventing
fracking chemicals
from contaminating drinking water supplies.
The growing number of
wells used to dispose of wastewater
from fracking are subject to lax oversight
In the 121 - page draft report released today, EPA officials said that the contamination near the town of Pavillion, Wyo., had most likely seeped up
from gas
wells and contained at least 10 compounds known to be used in
frack fluids.
The agency released data
from these test
wells in November that confirmed high levels of carcinogenic chemicals such as benzene, and a chemical compound called 2 Butoxyethanol, which is known to be used in
fracking.
Beginning in 2008, the EPA took water samples
from residents» drinking water
wells, finding hydrocarbons and traces of contaminants that seemed like they could be related to
fracking.
COVER Natural gas extracted
from a deep shale formation by hydraulic fracturing («
fracking») technology burns at a
well in Bradford County, Pennsylvania.
Fracking wastewater is laden with chemicals used to drill and
frack the
well and may also contain radioactive compounds and heavy metals released
from deep underground.
This massive development has led to more than 3,900 brine spills, mostly coming
from faulty pipes built to transport
fracked wells» flowback water
from on - site holding containers to nearby injection
wells where it will be disposed underground.»
Silica exposure also occurs
from hydraulic fracturing (
fracking) of oil and gas
wells.
Rob Jackson of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and colleagues analysed water
from 68 drinking
wells in upstate New York, where
fracking is banned, and Pennsylvania.
The researchers found 532
wells, or 1.3 percent of those studied, that were
fracked about 300 meters or less
from the surface — within the depth range of drinking water
wells.
But Jackson says that the contamination may have come not
from the
fracking but
from the
wells themselves, which can serve as a conduit between geological formations if not properly sealed.
The most recent such study, published in Environmental Science & Technology, finds that at least 6,900 oil and gas
wells in the U.S. were
fracked less than a mile (5,280 feet)
from the surface, and at least 2,600
wells were
fracked at depths shallower than 3,000 feet, some as shallow as 100 feet.
They looked both at
wells used for enhanced oil recovery — in which fluid is injected to flush lingering oil
from a depleted reservoir — and at those used to dispose of wastewater
from conventional oil and gas extraction or
from hydraulic fracturing (
fracking).
And there are other challenges associated with
fracking for natural gas besides climate change,
from what to do with the wastewater produced to drinking water contamination and even improperly drilled
wells that leak or explode and get out of control (a blowout).
«Given the high levels of contaminants these waters contain, it's startling that the amount of wastewater being produced
from hydraulic fracturing in the United States is nearly on the same level as the amount of water used to
frack the
wells in the first place,» Vengosh said.
The Ohio samples are being analyzed by UC researchers for concentrations of methane as
well as other hydrocarbons and salt, which is pulled up in the
fracking water mixture
from the shales.
The report explains that along with natural gas, production
wells in the Azle area of the NEGF can also bring to the surface significant volumes of water
from the highly permeable Ellenburger Formation — both naturally occurring brine as
well as fluids that were introduced during the
fracking process.
Last year his team claimed drinking
wells close to
fracking sites in Pennsylvania were contaminated with methane — perhaps
from fracking — a finding that was met with a storm of criticism.
Instead, the increased risk for seismicity is more strongly linked with the subsequent injection of the wastewater
from fracking and other oil - extraction processes into massive disposal
wells that are thousands of feet underground.
And that is an underestimate of the amount of brine,
fracking fluid and other contaminated water that flows back up a
well along with the natural gas or oil, because it is based on incomplete data
from state governments gathered in 2007.
High levels of methane leakage
from fracking have been found [163], as
well as nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds [159].
The device gathers data on how tracers — microscopic particles that can be pumped into and recovered
from wells — move through deep rock formations that have been opened by hydraulic fracturing [
fracking].
The study, «Toward a
better understanding and quantification of methane emissions
from shale gas development,» was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and undertaken by Dana R. Caulton and Paul B. Shepson of Purdue and a host of co-authors, including Anthony Ingraffea and Robert Howarth, Cornell scientists who are prominent foes of
fracking, along with Renee Santoro of Physicians Scientists & Engineers for Healthy Energy, a nonprofit group that has been critical of
fracking * (Ingraffea is affiliated with the group, as
well).
The time is right because Jansa is in the running for a $ 10,000 grant
from the Sprout Fund that could help her sustain and refine this effort to portray the many meanings and realities surrounding hydraulic fracturing,
better known as
fracking, in Pennsylvania communities scattered over the gas - rich Marcellus Shale.