Fracking for Dollars: Myths Debunked

June 26, 2011 Bart FrontPage

 

Hydraulic Fracturing has been around for 60 years. Developments made by U.S. engineers around 2008-9 have simply made the process much more commercially viable.

Read about Fracturing here:

Keep in mind, 90 percent of all gas wells drilled in the United States since 1949 have been fracked. Since fracking was introduced in 1949, over 2 million frack treatments have been pumped without a single documented case of treatments polluting a water aquifer.

 

The EPA has a draft study concerning the drinking water debate. Keep in  mind, the depth of most shale gas deposits drilled is between 6,000 and 10,000 feet. Water aquifers exist at an average depth of 500 feet. Claims of ‘migration’ between the shale gas layers and water aquifers due to fracking or for any other reason, are patently absurd as the gas would have to pass through millions of tons of impermeable rock. If the rock was that porous, neither the water nor the gas would have been there in the first place. This geological reality explains why EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, a determined enemy of fossil fuels, recently told Congress that there have been no “proven cases where the fracking process itself has affected water.” The truth is, Hydraulic fracking procedures are heavily regulated and not exempt from drinking water and other key regulatory laws. Concerns about using “excessive water resources” in the process are already being assuaged by new developments, including recycling water. And the U.S. Ground Water Protection Council confirms that drilling with compressed air is becoming increasingly common.  In truth, all U.S. companies must abide by federal water laws, and what the greens are really saying is that fracking should be singled out for special and unprecedented EPA oversight.

Fracking releases toxic or radioactive chemicals.

 

 

The reality is that 99.5 percent of the treatment is water and sand. Much of the remainder is made up of a maximum of 12 or so harmless gelling agents, like Guar gum used in ice cream making, and chemicals commonly used around the house. Domestic running water faucets being set alight with a match might wow gullible film audiences, but dissolved methane found in well water are naturally occurring. As the largest component in natural gas, methane is not even regulated as it is not toxic and escapes naturally like soda bubbles. The truth is that researchers found a mere 68 wells across Pennsylvania and New York where more than 20,000 water wells are drilled annually methane was detected in 85% of the wells they tested.

 

 

CANCER In Dish, Texas, Mayor Calvin Tillman caused a furor this year by announcing that he was quitting to move his sons away from “toxic” gases—such as cancer-causing benzene—from the town’s 60 gas wells. State health officials investigated and determined that toxin levels in the majority of Dish residents were “similar to those measured in the general U.S. population.

EARTHQUAKES Given the commonality of fracking without seismic impact, the risks would seem to be remote. Very little can be found about Fracking and Earthquakes. The NYT did a story last year, and there is a couple of footnotes here.

SMOG Fracking increases smog levels again is followed up by a NYT story here, and with little or no real research other than this.

LOCAL IMPACT Drillers use trucks to haul sand, cement and fluids, and those certainly increase traffic congestion and pollution. We think the trade-off between these effects and economic development are for states and localities to judge, keeping in mind that impact to localities decrease as drillers become more efficient.

LOCAL LAWS AND STATES RIGHTS Environmentalists claim fracking was “exempted” in 2005 from the federal Safe Water Drinking Act, thanks to industry lobbying. In truth, all U.S. companies must abide by federal water laws, and what the greens are really saying is that fracking should be singled out for special and unprecedented EPA oversight. Most drilling operations—including fracking—have long been regulated by the states. Operators need permits to drill and are subject to inspections and reporting requirements. Many resource-rich states like Texas have detailed fracking rules, while states newer to drilling are developing these regulations.

 

 

Debunked, Fracking, Gas, Layers, Myths, Shale

McDonald’s asked to euthanize Ronald Replacing Indian Point: A Working Concept