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Today's Top News
Shale Gas Drilling's Dirty Secret Is Out
The EPA's findings about fracking's contamination of ground water have sent a shockwave through a gas industry in denial
Thursday's stunning announcement from US EPA that implicates hydrofracturing ("fracking") as the cause of groundwater contamination in Pavillion, Wyoming is news that has rocked the world. But as groundbreaking and innovative as the investigation has been, the news comes as no surprise to anyone who has been following fracking closely. 
Workers at a natural gas well site near Burlington, Pennsylvania. Residents in Dimock, PA are convinced their water has been poisoned by fracking. (Photograph: Ralph Wilson/AP Photo)
Anyone who lives in a gas drilling area can tell you: fracking contaminates groundwater. Citizens have been shouting this at the top of their lungs in fracking areas since shortly after the process of hydraulic fracturing was exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act in 2005, paving the way for the largest gas drilling boom in domestic history. The exemption, known as the "Halliburton Loophole", allows fracking companies to inject toxic chemicals under the ground in huge quantities and not report it to the EPA. But with this much fracking going on, with thousands of wells being drilled and fracked in 34 states, and with thousands of reported cases of contamination, the gas industry just can't keep their secrets buried; they keep bubbling up through the ground.
Since April 2009, I have been documenting the water contamination in the gas fracking field in Pavillion, Wyoming. The testimony of Pavillion cowboys John Fenton, Louis Meeks and Jeff Locker and their incredible families is some of the most stirring in our film Gasland. Since that time, I have been closely following the extensive three-year EPA investigation, and the results have shown over and over again that there were contaminants in the groundwater, which posed a significant health risk to the residents.
Yet the EPA withheld any language that sounded conclusive – until now. When the whole world is watching, when the gas industry is decrying a lack of science (even as they obstruct and smear the science that has been done), and when the health of the state of New York, alongside significant areas in 34 states and 50 countries worldwide is on the line, you want to make sure that your methods are precise and your statements are conservative.
So, when the EPA now says, "When considered together with other lines of evidence, the data indicates likely impact to groundwater that can be explained by hydraulic fracturing," that is something quite new. What is also clear is that the aquifer in Pavillion will never be cleaned. The contamination there, for the foreseeable future, is permanent. And considering that the permanent contamination of huge areas of groundwater in the US is now a scientifically proven risk, the Pavillion investigation, as extensive as it was, must become the new standard for investigating fracking complaints worldwide.
Having investigated fracking myself for three years, I have heard the same story hundreds of times, from residents in gas-drilling areas from Wyoming to Arkansas, from Pennsylvania to Texas. It goes like this: the frackers move in – and all of a sudden your water turns color, or can be lit on fire, or smells like turpentine or leaves burn marks on you after you take a shower. It doesn't take a genius to connect the dots.
And when reading EPA's water tablature from Pavillion, the notes are really familiar: a minor key refrain of benzene, xylene and other volatile organics, modulation over to glycol ethers and other chemicals in the antifreeze family, a bang-up chorus of thermogenic methane and a killer hook of acetone, naphthalene and 2-butoxyethanol. In fact, three days ago, practically the same list of fracking chemical ingredients found in Pavillion's water were found in water tests from Dimock, Pennsylvania – another poster town for fracking contamination of groundwater.
In Dimock, PA, like Pavillion, citizen's water went bad right after drilling and fracking moved in. Yet, the state agency, PA DEP, and the governor, Tom Corbett, have sided with the gas companies – and they deny any responsibility or long-term harm.
The EPA must intervene in Dimock immediately. An extensive study should be conducted there, with the same careful, methodical and thorough science that was employed in Pavillion. And while that study is conducted, the EPA should mandate that Cabot Oil and Gas supply the residents with replacement water; and the drilling moratorium in the area should continue.
It is hard to prove something that is happening thousands of feet below the ground. It's very difficult and costly, both in time and money. To prove that fracking has contaminated water, even as obvious as it can be to residents who can see the apparent cause and effect, takes extensive and expensive hydrogeological study. Hundreds of chemicals need to be tested over a period of years in a large sample area. In Pavillion, nearly 50 water wells were sampled, two deep monitoring wells were drilled and years of working with the immense pool of data was required. After viewing the EPA draft study (pdf), no one can ever again say that robust science has not been brought to bear on fracking.
But the trail doesn't end there. The gas fracking industry has been so poorly regulated for so long, the legacy of contamination and obfuscation has been allowed to run unchecked for so many years, that the EPA and the United States now faces a Herculean task of investigating the thousands of cases that mirror Pavillion and Dimock – from Texas, to Louisiana, Colorado, Arkansas, Michigan, New Mexico and more.
Beyond the US, Europe, South Africa, China and Australia are right now contemplating embarking on the "shale gas revolution"; they should take note of the EPA's findings. As the story unfolds, the real answer bubbles inexorably to the surface: fracking is deeply flawed; it is inherently contaminating in its present form and must be halted immediately. The empty excuses of the gas industry and the pro-fracking politicians who defend them just don't hold water.
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17 Comments so far
Show AllThank you Josh,
Your movie and steadfast advocacy for protecting ALL of our clean water and healthy lives, is an inspirational and sacred commitment that connects us ALL together in common need.
The ground water contamination is one very serious consequence of shale gas fracking. Another fracking hazard, which is hardly ever mentioned, is the leakage of methane from burgeoning thousands of sites. A recent US Department of Energy report criticized the EPA for allowing methane leakage to go unreported. Now we have the initiation of up to 100,000 fracking sites coinciding with a defrosting Arctic. Global methane monitoring is so poorly resolved that we'll have no idea, in the event of a surge in atmospheric methane, whether it's coming from fracking, from the Arctic, or from both.
Current estimates hold that methane is 105 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2, over a 20-year span.
Energy Dept. Panel Warns of Environmental Toll of Current Gas Drilling Practices: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/11/11-2
A drilling accident in Turkmenistan leaves a burning pit for 35 years. This is not a small pit.
http://www.engineering.com/Videos/VideoPlayer/tabid/4627/VideoId/150/Natural-Gas-Fire-Burning-For-35-Years.aspx
I'd also like to say thank you Josh! Lets hope that those we elect to represent our voices are reading and listening to this report too!
On a different but equally important note, please remember that for all the ways in which ground water contamination from fracking harms humans, it's probably a hundred times worse for trees, plants and animals. Humans aren't the only ones injured, diseased or hurt by our insane and dirty methods of extracting fossil fuels. The non human world suffers silently. They don't get to voice their horror stories in our courts or Congress. Don't forget them. We share this planet with millions of other species who deserve equal protection. They matter as much as we do.
"They matter as much as we do."
Unfortunately, this does not go without saying. Thanks for saying it.
Right Wing Neo Fasisct Corporations destroying the very planet we life on for PURE SELF INTEREST AND GREED THEY ARE SCUM
The comment that the contaminated aquifers cannot be "cleaned" is important. Once organic molecules are put in an aquifer, as they flow through it, some of them adhere to the surfaces of silt and clay particles in the rock or soil (the term is "adsorb"). So even if the water is pumped out, treated, and pumped back in again, the adsorbed molecules are still there, and over time, they tend to slowly bleed back into the water (they "desorb"). If you pump and treat again, the same thing happens. For all practical purposes, there will always be some of the contaminant in the water.
If the gas companies pumped only water into their wells to fracture the rocks, this problem would not occur, but that is not efficient enough for them. So they contaminate other peoples' drinking water. Even if they pay to have water trucked in to replace that from contaminated wells, they are not going to do that forever, and THAT is what should be required.
What should be required for gas companies is a severance tax levied on the amount of the natural resource removed from the commons. A potential pollution tax must complement this severance tax. The pollution potential would be monitored and if the potential is as bad as reported, the pollution tax should immediately rise higher than the pumping is deep. The gas company would pay and, if still solvent, move on to more profitable endeavors. Again, pollution as reported should not be profitable.
The points here are that costs must be borne by those incurring them and monitoring must be in real time and not be subject to monitoring capture such as the well known regulatory capture. Monitoring would be more flexible, informative, and real time than extensive preregulation.
All these regulations trying to protect the environment cost "money" just as providing Fire protection services for Citizens cost "money."
We have that Ron Paul crowd suggesting that all these agencies be curtailed so why not the same "fix" some counties use for their Fire protection services?
If you want clean water you must pay a "clean water fee" of say 1200$$ a year. If you refuse to pay it then you have no right to clean water and the agencies mandated to ensure water safe to drink can stand around and watch while you drink the bad stuff.
Taxes can be cut, and budgets balanced and citizens can be FREE once more and made responsible for looking after their own welfare. These "Job Providing" oil and gas firms can ensure the United States of America remains prosperous and the people put to work!
You can then apply that to the food supply, the air that is breathed, the highway systems and everything else that evil Government provides.
A nice job of taking the Libertarian positions to their logical extreme.
It is easier to show how looney they are by distinguishing between services (such as fire protection) and common resources (such as air and water). The latter should not be considered as commodities, and corporations should not be allowed to use them indiscriminately, with no obligation to use them sensibly.
I think the appropriate punishment for the oil industry executives is be to forced to drink one full liter (a little under a US quart) of their 'safe' fracking fluids, and to be given NO medical treatment afterward.
According to Wikipedia, quoting an article published in Nature magazine in Sept. 2011, Fracked gas has a greenhouse-gas footprint greater than coal or oil on timescales shorter than 50 years. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Of the 750 compounds used in fracking, over 650 are known carcinogens or listed as hazardous air pollutants. Over 100 thousand gallons of these compounds are consumed per well, so I'd guess several million gallons are being used today with a potential of another ten million gallons over the next few years. Many compounds are not known because of "trade secret" "rights" of Das Korporations. If you look further you have to wonder about the inputs to the research/development and production of these chemicals, the opportunity costs of those resources expended there, including people's dependence on those activities for their livelihoods, and the environmental destruction coming out of those. And nobody really needs the gas. Instead their racket is to further addict us to fossil-fried konveniences, to make us more weak and pliable. So for every crime committed by Das Kapitalists, we see compounded crimes behind the camouflage, if we care to look.
A great deal of mystery surrounds the chemicals used in fracking. What is their purpose? Are they absolutely necessary? Would just using the high pressure water be completely unsuccessful or just less efficient? How much less efficient? Would it be possible to find less toxic substitutes? Even with no chemicals in the fracking solution wouldn't some of the target methane enter underground aquifers? I've spent a bit of time looking for answers to these questions on the web with no success. Can anyone provide references?
Watch Gasland, look at the credits, goto those websites.
I doubt you've looked very hard, as proprietary fracking mixtures are meticulously crafted to maximize profits, especially when almost ALL costs are completely externalized. Each component is quite purposeful, either to met current demands and/or having been used before. Drilling is quite a bit less scientific than most suspect, being mostly brut force, after knowing where to drill.
Avoiding busting up very expensive drill bits, is why fracking and drilling fluids are constituted as they are, primarily acting as lubricants and surfactants, and other stuff to preserve that under extremes of pressure and heat.
There are no environmental impact statements, no comparable alternative considered , evaluated, or discussed -- because they know that they're killing folks to maximize profits. The less we know, the longer their greedy crap shoot continues -- just like Wall St's similar pathological and unrelenting blind rush towards oblivion.
They make so much money, that seemingly they can afford to act like idiots, as that works well enough ( pun intended ).
Businesses may rely somewhat on tradition and so called old family recipes, but from their point of view every gram of everything they spend their money on, had better be directly related to accentuating their profits, or somehow maximizing their overall flexibility to do that, across ground/soil variables they cannot control or predict.
Yes, some idiots do throw their money down holes in the ground … but only a very small proportion of it, for the successful ones.
If there were a way to not vent as much valuable methane gas, while maintaining other profits -- their carnivorous rapacity will work to find it. I suspect that the loss of that methane is minuscule compared to the profits that they make, raping the public day in and day out (empire's version of the ol 'in n out').
SADLY, of course, minimizing damages to people's drinking water HAS been set up politically (regulations) to HAVE NOTHING to do with their profits (other than pesky lawsuits and being forced to supply alternate water sources, to those willing to fight them tooth and nail).
so many places to occupy
so little time
Ban Michigan Fracking
A pro-ban organization has formed in Michigan: Ban Michigan Fracking. (www.banmichiganfracking.org). We oppose recently-introduced state legislation that would impose a sham fracking study funded by the gas industry and a fracking advisory panel with a mandate to recommend regulations, designed to deem the process "safe." Encana is already fracking in Michigan. The company has drilling rights on 425,000 acres here. The pending legislation would make Encana pay an estimated $8.5 million for the study (and other gas lease holders) carried out by state regulatory agencies, which are on record as already regulating the industry "safely."
We already know enough about the damages in other states to know that fracking is not and never will be safe, and we don't need the same sham frack-panel/frack study/moratorium to pronounce it as such.
We need to BAN the practice now and forever.
Josh, you'd trust a gas company to supply residents with water? Ironic.
It'd be great if Gasland were caption. When it came out I couldn't watch it because it wasn't CC.