EPA discloses evidence that fracking contaminates drinking water

[Puffnstuff]

These are the types of administrative agency actions that Trump wants to kill off to help his rich friends out. Both parties have issued fracking permits to oil companies over the years so neither is guilt free but if Trump gets in the way of the EPA this kind of empirical evidence will get sequestered to protect his oil company friends as they seek this method to unlock gas and oil reserves buried in rock formations across the land. Its all fine until you turn on the faucet and get flammable gas and other contaminates along with your undrinkable water.

 

[dank69]

Ohio and Pennsylvania voted for more, so I think it is awesome. More money for bottled water, too. Profits for everyone!

 

[PokerGuy]

Can you link us up to where Trump said these are the actions that Trump wants to kill off?
Or is that just the usual lefty drivel?

 

[dank69]

Can you link us up to where Trump said these are the actions that Trump wants to kill off?
Or is that just the usual lefty drivel?

That's called commentary. We have a whole thread discussing his requests for personal data on any EPA employee that participated in climate change conferences, etc. I'm sure you are capable of rationalizing away why he didn't ask for that data for employees that didn't partake in that sort of work. Probably just wants to give the climate change people some gold stars for helping China.

 

[imported_tajmahal]

The report doesn't find any contamination and it says so. What was removed were claims that maybe, could be, might be, shoulda, woulda, coulda be some kind of contamination and Donald Trump is a big meany.

 

[imported_tajmahal]

That's called commentary. We have a whole thread discussing his requests for personal data on any EPA employee that participated in climate change conferences, etc. I'm sure you are capable of rationalizing away why he didn't ask for that data for employees that didn't partake in that sort of work. Probably just wants to give the climate change people some gold stars for helping China.

That was the Department of Energy, not the EPA, but keep on lying, it makes Republicans look even better.

 

[dank69]

That was the Department of Energy, not the EPA, but keep on lying.

Oh, my mistake. That makes it all better.

 

[bshole]

The report doesn't find any contamination and it says so. What was removed were claims that maybe, could be, might be, shoulda, woulda, coulda be some kind of contamination and Donald Trump is a big meany.

Ok somebody is lying or confused. We have two opposite assertions of fact.

Does the report indicate a link or not?

 

[Puffnstuff]

Seeing that the EPA, a cabinet level department, falls under the executive branch as it was established by an executive order issued by President Nixon (agencies can fall under the executive or legislative branches) a president that is inclined to interfere with the acquisition and release of information can have a detrimental effect on how they operate. With that said this is the EPA's official fracking page. I had to write a research paper on the Keystone Pipeline and to support my theories I used this report along with many oil train and oil ship accidents (including transfer incidents) to support the installation of the pipeline from Canada. My conclusion was that letting them frack in the great white north saved our drinking water and the pipeline would minimize public exposure to a mobile highly flammable/combustible product.. I find it ironic that Republicans created the EPA and now they want to gut it.

 

[herm0016]

the report actually says that it could, but we can find no direct evidence of water contamination. It is worded in just the right way you can interpret it to mean what ever you think. The report was pulled and reworded to so that the media could report that "fracking is the devil" with a few sentences taken out of context, vs the first version where you could not do that.

 

[theeedude]

Trump Trash's kids can now drink what they voted for.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

What's interesting is the seemingly total inability of the EPA to add requirements to drinking water quality standards. All of the contaminants being found now were simply untested for in pre fracking days so, the argument goes, who's to say they weren't always there? Now, we have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt these contaminants have an adverse effect on people before we can even get the cash to test for them let alone ameliorate or protect against them. Meanwhile big money and the likes of Trump protest the EPA has too much power and authority.

 

[werepossum]

Isn't this pretty much a given? If we fracture rock layers, we are opening up passages, but without necessarily having much control over what now connects to what. At my wife's old home, the neighbors (northern transplants not used to hills) did a bunch of earth moving to flatten their farm. What happened was their well and their pond went sour and almost dry, because reducing the lay of the land changed the underlying hydrology. Changing the weights of different parts also changed the way water flowed through four hundred plus feet below. It's the same with fracking; breaking up layers of rock necessarily changed the hydrology, and not necessarily in ways we can predict. It's simply too complicated a system to model with what information we can glean from above ground tests or test bore sampling.

I'm not saying it should never be done, but we need to understand (and admit) that there are always risks and there may be significant mitigation required. Fracking should always be proceeded with extensive studies and baseline testing, and should require significant bonds to fund mitigation if needed.

 

[herm0016]

What's interesting is the seemingly total inability of the EPA to add requirements to drinking water quality standards. All of the contaminants being found now were simply untested for in pre fracking days so, the argument goes, who's to say they weren't always there? Now, we have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt these contaminants have an adverse effect on people before we can even get the cash to test for them let alone ameliorate or protect against them. Meanwhile big money and the likes of Trump protest the EPA has too much power and authority.

True. The thing is, Oil and gas and their constituents have also been in the ground far longer than we have been fracking for them or testing water, Some times they even bubble up to the surface on their own. There are instants where gas is found naturally in the top of an aquifer because the geology is good at trapping gas, oil and water. Oil and Gas are nearly always produced with water in the same geology.

the draft report, released in the summer of 2015, EPA said they “did not find evidence that these mechanisms [fracking] have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources.”
despite the same data in the final report, they changed the tone from science to speculation about the impacts.

Millions of wells in the US have been fracked over the last 60 or so years. Yes, there have been problems. These problems are generally related to casing and well construction and not fracking itself.

Fracking is a particular process that one can use in the construction of an oil well. The Drilling and casing of the well are not fracking. What the EPA said, is that the process of fracking is not the thing that is causing the few and far between problems they see. The things causing the issues are things like casing corrosion, leaking parts inside the wells, and badly maintained surface equipment. ( These are the 3 things i have seen the most).

Many states require that well integrity is proven before wells are bought /sold and on every new well drilled, this should be a national requirement i believe. It would also give us more business as we offer these services to well operators.

 

[Fenixgoon]

i wouldn't call the idea that fracking fluids contaminate water an earthshattering find.

the extent (in terms of volume or area) and severity is of more concern than the fact itself. fracking has potential, yes, but just like any other method of resource extraction, it needs to be done very carefully so as to not contaminate other useful resources (e.g. water).

 

[herm0016]

Isn't this pretty much a given? If we fracture rock layers, we are opening up passages, but without necessarily having much control over what now connects to what. At my wife's old home, the neighbors (northern transplants not used to hills) did a bunch of earth moving to flatten their farm. What happened was their well and their pond went sour and almost dry, because reducing the lay of the land changed the underlying hydrology. Changing the weights of different parts also changed the way water flowed through four hundred plus feet below. It's the same with fracking; breaking up layers of rock necessarily changed the hydrology, and not necessarily in ways we can predict. It's simply too complicated a system to model with what information we can glean from above ground tests or test bore sampling.

I'm not saying it should never be done, but we need to understand (and admit) that there are always risks and there may be significant mitigation required. Fracking should always be proceeded with extensive studies and baseline testing, and should require significant bonds to fund mitigation if needed.

sour, a term usually reserved for the migration of H2S or sulfur compounds into a well and a natural constituent of oil and gas. You mean to say, a well was contaminated by some dirt work above with oil and gas constituents without an oil or gas well nearby? So your conclusion is that a water well can be contaminated by these things by simply building a home above, or other means and if it was not tested before, that it is impossible to say that oil and gas operations were the thing that contaminated it?

actually, we can model the fractures quite well and the same geology that traps the oil and gas will protect what is above. The shear stress of the rock is known from nuclear study of the density, porosity, mineralogy and induction or electrical study of the permeability of the formation. We can also dope the frac fluid or sand with different things and use specialized tools to measure the fracture propagation directly. Measuring these things has given the industry a lot of information to model with. Pumping pressure is usually not limited by the cap rock formation, but by the surface equipment and casing specifications.

this i agree with "but we need to understand (and admit) that there are always risks and there may be significant mitigation required"

mitigation steps that are taken now include multiple layers of well casing and cement, measuring the mechanical properties of rock, measuring the quality of the casing and cement. These are steps that the BLM and some states require on each well, and even where not required, Most oil companies take.

i wouldn't call the idea that fracking fluids contaminate water an earthshattering find.
.

what they said was "could" not "have". "Could" has no place in the conclusions of a scientific study.

 

[imported_tajmahal]

Because of the very active fraud that so many environmentalists use to promote their various causes people have come to distrust the liars calling "wolf wolf wolf" and then being caught in a lie.
Just one example.
https://energyindepth.org/national/the-continuing-fraud-of-gasland/

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Because of the very active fraud that so many environmentalists use to promote their various causes people have come to distrust the liars calling "wolf wolf wolf" and then being caught in a lie.
Just one example.
https://energyindepth.org/national/the-continuing-fraud-of-gasland/

bwaaahahahahaha you will swallow anything won't you

Energy in Depth (EID) is a pro-oil-and-gas drilling industry front group formed by the American Petroleum Institute, the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) and dozens of additional industry organizations for the purpose of criticizing the documentary "Gaslands", their latest attempt being a documentary produced by a political attack ad agency for EID, the ironically titled "Truthland"[1] which was exposed as a gas industry infomercial[2] as soon as it was released. The domain for the website promoting the film —Truthlandmovie.com — is owned by gas driller Chesapeake Energy.[3

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_in_Depth

 

[alien42]

Because of the very active fraud that so many environmentalists use to promote their various causes people have come to distrust the liars calling "wolf wolf wolf" and then being caught in a lie.
Just one example.
https://energyindepth.org/national/the-continuing-fraud-of-gasland/

have you ever experienced serious head trauma?

 

[imported_tajmahal]

lol at "sourcewatch"

"
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is a nonprofit liberal watchdog and advocacy organization based in Madison, Wisconsin.[3][4][5][5][6][7] CMD publishes PR Watch, SourceWatch, BanksterUSA, and ALECexposed.org."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Media_and_Democracy
Go fsk yourself.

 

[Amused]

These are the types of administrative agency actions that Trump wants to kill off to help his rich friends out. Both parties have issued fracking permits to oil companies over the years so neither is guilt free but if Trump gets in the way of the EPA this kind of empirical evidence will get sequestered to protect his oil company friends as they seek this method to unlock gas and oil reserves buried in rock formations across the land. Its all fine until you turn on the faucet and get flammable gas and other contaminates along with your undrinkable water.

I don't think that report says what you think it says.

"The agency says it’s unable to fully characterize the severity of fracking’s impact on drinking water. But it does point to circumstances that could make ground water vulnerable."

"In a report, the EPA described how hydraulic fracturing or fracking activities “can impact drinking water resources under some circumstances,” but the agency can’t say how severely."

"“The gaps in information unfortunately do not allow us to say how much, what is the rate of the impact. And so that sentence was removed,” Burke said."

Those are all the relevant quotes. Not a single statement of fact among them.

Your thread title is highly misleading.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

lol at "sourcewatch"

"
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is a nonprofit liberal watchdog and advocacy organization based in Madison, Wisconsin.[3][4][5][5][6][7] CMD publishes PR Watch, SourceWatch, BanksterUSA, and ALECexposed.org."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Media_and_Democracy
Go fsk yourself.

how about you go felch drumpf for the umpteenth time
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/12...orters’-guide-its-founding-funding-and-flacks
https://www.desmogblog.com/‘energy-...oil-and-gas-companies-according-industry-memo

 

[OutHouse]

That was the Department of Energy, not the EPA, but keep on lying, it makes Republicans look even better.

Lol owned!!

 

[herm0016]

gasland is proven to be a bunch of malarky. it's possible I was literally on the site in Wyoming when he was saying he was "on a fracking location" while standing in a pull out on a public road overlooking the pinedale anticline. The burning water was a bunch of bs also :

Mike Markham who ignited a fireball from a faucet in his home in Colorado, filed a formal complaint about methane in his drinking water with the Colorado Oil and Gas Commission (COGCC). Water samples from Markham’s well were tested by Empact Analytical Systems and Evergreen Analytical Laboratory. On September 30, 2008, more than a year prior to the release of “Gasland,” Markham’s complaint was resolved by the COGCC with the finding that his flammable water did indeed contain methane.


Dissolved methane in well water appears to be biogenic [natural] in origin. Tests were positive for iron related bacteria and sulfate reducing bacteria. There are no indications of oil & gas related impacts to well water.”

 

[werepossum]

sour, a term usually reserved for the migration of H2S or sulfur compounds into a well and a natural constituent of oil and gas. You mean to say, a well was contaminated by some dirt work above with oil and gas constituents without an oil or gas well nearby? So your conclusion is that a water well can be contaminated by these things by simply building a home above, or other means and if it was not tested before, that it is impossible to say that oil and gas operations were the thing that contaminated it?

actually, we can model the fractures quite well and the same geology that traps the oil and gas will protect what is above. The shear stress of the rock is known from nuclear study of the density, porosity, mineralogy and induction or electrical study of the permeability of the formation. We can also dope the frac fluid or sand with different things and use specialized tools to measure the fracture propagation directly. Measuring these things has given the industry a lot of information to model with. Pumping pressure is usually not limited by the cap rock formation, but by the surface equipment and casing specifications.

this i agree with "but we need to understand (and admit) that there are always risks and there may be significant mitigation required"

mitigation steps that are taken now include multiple layers of well casing and cement, measuring the mechanical properties of rock, measuring the quality of the casing and cement. These are steps that the BLM and some states require on each well, and even where not required, Most oil companies take.

what they said was "could" not "have". "Could" has no place in the conclusions of a scientific study.

This particular case had nothing to do with oil or gas exploitation, or building a home. The owners hired an earth moving company to literally flatten their farm, so that from the house they could see virtually all of it. Survey their kingdom, so to speak. In some places, they removed forty to sixty feet of earth and rock. In others, they added up to twenty or thirty. The sulfur could have come from an oil or gas deposit - there are wells for both in this part of Tennessee. But there are not (to my knowledge) any such wells within maybe five to seven miles, and the guy from the state concluded that the problem was that the expansion and contraction of the land (due to removing and adding tons of weight) changed the underlying hydrology. The altered flow of subterranean water both lessened the well's flow and soured it. To my knowledge, there were no conclusions made about the exact nature of the sulphuric deposit(s) encountered, or even whether it was a new source of sulphur or simply a concentration due to the greatly lessened water flow. It was much the same with the pond; its underground seepage stopped, or nearly so. (Although that is much harder to quantify because not only is there no way to capture and measure the flow into the pond, but direct surface runoff was greatly reduced by flattening the surrounding land.) As to intent, that was merely to demonstrate that changes in overlying structures (through any means) can cause disproportionate and unintended changes in hydrology. In this case, changes in stress caused underground streams to reroute. In other cases, fracking causes unexpected results such as flammable and/or sulfuric gases coming into potable wells.

I understand that all this can be modeled, but the ability to model something does not necessarily translate into perfect understanding of or control over that thing.