Fracking wastewater might have caused Ohio quake

Hey, is there any truth about fracking contaminating drinking water to this extent?



Pretty scary if that's true...

reply to post by jdub297


There are other articles of interest.

and don't count out this reference: www.abovetopsecret.com...


perhaps slanted BUT:

The EPA has finally admitted that fracking, the controversial act of pumping water and chemicals underground in order to facilitate the flow of oil or gas, is causing groundwater pollution. The chemicals involved in the fracking process are highly toxic, and many activists have been speaking out against fracking due to the threat to public health that the technique poses. Many viral videos have actually shown residents of fracking towns lighting their tap water on fire due to the high gas content.

The new EPA findings could significantly impact the fracking process, with the possibility of future regulations going into place to halt the environmental impact of fracking. The real question is whether or not the EPA will take the appropriate steps to reduce or even stop fracking, after ignoring the threat for quite some time. The EPA declaration immediately received criticism and rebutal from the oil and gas industry as well as one United States senator. Oil and gas companies have long claimed that fracking is completely safe, ignoring all information put forth that highlights the potential dangers to human health. In contrast, environmentalists across the nation rejoiced as the issue was brought to the public spotlight and debate spectrum.

EPA Admits Fracking Causing Groundwater Pollution

Environmental Protection Agency announces findings after Wyoming residents complained well water reeked of chemicals

The US Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday for the first time that fracking — a controversial method of improving the productivity of oil and gas wells — may be to blame for causing groundwater pollution.

The draft finding could have significant implications while states try to determine how to regulate the process. Environmentalists characterized the report as a significant development though it met immediate criticism from the oil and gas industry and a US senator.......


The EPA found that compounds likely associated with fracking chemicals had been detected in the groundwater beneath Pavillion, a small community in central Wyoming where residents say their well water reeks of chemicals. Health officials last year advised them not to drink their water after the EPA found low levels hydrocarbons in their wells.

Fracking may be causing groundwater pollution, says EPA report



and of course, here is an industry rebuttle:

December 14, 2011 —
PAVILLION, WY — For years, the gas drilling industry has been adamant that there’s never been an incident in which it was proved that hydraulic fracturing has caused contamination in ground water. Perhaps that is why the drilling industry and its supporters have pushed back so forcefully against a draft report from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), released on December 8, which links fracking and groundwater contamination in Pavillion, WY.

Wyoming governor Matt Mead issued a press release saying, “The study released today from EPA was based on data from two test wells drilled in 2010 and tested once that year and once in April, 2011. Those test wells are deeper than drinking wells. The data from the test wells was not available to the rest of
the working group until a month ago.”

Gas industry rips EPA study; report links fracking to groundwater contamination


The opening post article is accurate.

We need some credible reports that say there is NO dangers.
Otherwise there ARE dangers !

I live in NE Ohio, right off lake Erie, and I somehow didnt feel the quake =(

I was told it was around 4pm? I was at work at that time.

Originally posted by JustSlowlyBackAway

Originally posted by Corruption Exposed
reply to post by real_one

 

I doubt they would stop even if they awoke a super volcano somehow. Just imagine the New Madrid fault line completely giving out, from what I heard it could be very disastrous.

People who have tried to stop it have failed. It not only creates earthquakes (this has been known since the 1950's) but it pollutes groundwater and air.

But it makes money for a select few. Guess who wins.

They stopped fracturing in Basel (Swiss). I am not sure how fracturing in depths of > 1.000 m pollutes groundwater and air.

reply to post by xuenchen

The opening post article is accurate.

It is an exaggeration without factual basis. It attributes to "officials" a conclusion nowhere supported in the articke, the post or this thread.

People who are ignorant of science are easily convinced that things they do not understand are responsible for all that is wrong in their lives, including mistakes of their own doing.

We need some credible reports that say there is NO dangers.
Otherwise there ARE dangers !

Do you have a report that says your water or air or bathtub are safe? What about store-bought food?
Your statement invites people to live in fear instead of taking charge of their lives.

Instead of accepting a biased interpretation of the preliminary, a reasonable person would dig alittle bit deeper (unless said propaganda fits in nicely with their perverted worldview) for other information and more detail about the EPA "study."

This is the first major study to have detected linkage between fracking and ground-water pollution, and the EPA draft hasn't been peer reviewed by independent scientific analysts. Critics are already picking apart the study, which Wyoming Governor Matt Mead called "scientifically questionable."

The EPA's Fracking Scare: Breaking down the facts in that Wyoming drinking water study

.The EPA says it launched the study in response to complaints "regarding objectionable taste and odor problems in well water." What it doesn't say is that the U.S. Geological Survey has detected organic chemicals in the well water in Pavillion (population 175) for at least 50 years.

So, now the anti-fossil fuels biased EPA has a favorite boogeyman to point the finger at for a problem that pre-dates the boogeyman's existence by 4 decades!

There are other problems with the study that either the EPA failed to disclose or the press has given little attention to:
• The EPA study concedes that "detections in drinking water wells are generally below [i.e., in compliance with] established health and safety standards." The dangerous compound EPA says it found in the drinking wells was ... used in association with plastics and plastic components used in drinking wells.

• The pollution detected by the EPA and alleged to be linked to fracking was found in deep-water "monitoring wells"—not the shallower drinking wells. It's far from certain that pollution in these deeper wells caused the pollution in drinking wells. The deep-water wells that EPA drilled are located near a natural gas reservoir. Encana Corp., which owns more than 100 wells around Pavillion, says it didn't "put the natural gas at the bottom of the EPA's deep monitoring wells. Nature did."

• To the extent that drilling chemicals have been detected in monitoring wells, the EPA admits this may result from "legacy pits," which are old wells that were drilled many years before fracking was employed. The EPA also concedes that the inferior design of Pavillion's old wells allows seepage into the water supply.

• The fracking in Pavillion takes place in unusually shallow wells of fewer than 1,000 to 1,500 feet deep. ... . Even the EPA report acknowledges that Pavillion's drilling conditions are far different from other areas of the country, such as the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania.

I have seen great criticisms of the status quo on ATS, but these are peppered with completely uninformed hysterics about things which most of the mindless drones fall victim to with predictable regularity.

This farce is unfortunately part of that uninformed, misguided, hysteria.

How sad.

No one here even bothers to consider whether the gas industry would willfully destroy their own livelihood with such tactics, or whether the USGS, EPA, USDA and other agencies would let it continue if it were proven to be contaminating our limited fresh-water resources.

But, of course, common snese and logic do not alwatys count here or at the EPA which considers CO2 a "dangerous pollutant." Are all of you believers holding your breath? Have you cut off your electricity and gas?

Nothing would shut down drilling faster, and destroy billions of dollars of investment, than interviews with mothers afraid [of] polluted water. So the EPA study needs to be carefully reviewed.
EPA's credibility is also open to review. The agency is dominated by anticarbon true believers, the Obama Administration has waged a campaign to raise the price and limit the production of fossil fuels.

Deny ignorance.
jw

reply to post by jdub297


You disprove your own argument with the content you pasted. Did you even read what you quoted or did you just expect us to believe your unfactual opinionated diatribe?

Not much of a debate.

Fracking is awesome and all the studies exposing the risks it causes are a conspiracy against the gas industry and all those people with contaminated drinking water were lying and the frackers never admitted that they messed up the water and they never supplied fresh water to that town because of it

You sir jus made my morning. Thank you

To top it off you even threw in the deny ignorance cliche that many "deniers" do, comedy gold bro.

Thanks again

reply to post by jdub297


All those reports and opinions seem to be just fingerpointing.

Yes, I would be one of the ignorant ones.

Therefore, I would require some solid reports.

They keep saying this or that is incomplete, and agencies keep saying conflicting opinions, etc. etc.

One politician or another says this, somebody else says something else.

In the meantime, problems and questions keep popping up.

The politicians and some agencies are financially biased IMO.

Please convince me that fracking is harmless.

Too many opinions are whining about somebody losing money.

Earthquakes aside, most of us who know freshwater is in short supply would tell you to stop simply because you can't waste the water. You can't afford to lose any. There's just not enough to go around anymore.

I live in Huerfano County CO people here have known for sometime that fracking is polluting the water. Some wells dried up others blew up. Cattle/crops downstream from the operation were stunted. I believe the high salt content was initially blamed but more research is needed. Locals are angry our own elected officials sold us out.

Colorado: Shell gets OK for fracking in Spanish Peaks

Shell Oil & Gas has been cleared to drill deep into a unique geological formation near the Spanish Peaks, in southern Colorado, to explore new natural gas resources.

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission last month denied a citizen request for a public hearing because the request didn’t come from a local government entry.

The approval process was fraught with controversy, as the planning and zoning commission refused to let members of the public speak at preliminary meetings on the approval. Scott King, chair of the commission, threatened to forcibly remove citizens from meetings, according to Ceal Smith, of the San Luis Valley Renewable Communities Alliance.

When audience members protested this action, King responded with, “So sue us,” according to Smith.

“The goal of the Sierra Club RMC, is to ensure that Colorado water and air resources are clean, public health, environment, and wildlife is protected, and that these are not endangered or impacted by irresponsible oil and gas drilling practices,” said Gopa Ross, chair of the Sierra Club’s Rocky Mountain Chapter oil and gas committee.

Ross has first-hand experience with oil and gas exploration. A water well on her horse ranch in Las Animas County was contaminated with methane gas, arsenic and fluoride by gas drilling in 2006 and impacted again in 2009 during drilling operations. The water well never recovered.

Among the Huerfanos’ concerns is the fact that Shell has only limited geophysical survey data, and that the company is not aware of the area’s unique geology. They want Shell to do a more comprehensive survey to be sure that drilling so deep in the vicinity of the Great Dikes of the Spanish Peaks doesn’t present unmanageable risks.

If the claim that fracking is safe is based on limited data then it's really not a complete picture. Back in august we had one of the strongest earthquakes felt in years. It damaged foundations south of me and shook us up pretty good. Not only did I feel the shaking I heard it coming like a train. Maybe that's because the ground around me is nothing but rock not much soil for cushion not sure.

They're going to rape/pillage our land then leave just like coal mining operations did. Land is often not reclaimed when companies go bankrupt instead taxpayers are left to pick up the tab. We are given no initial say yet when enough profits have been extracted we are left to do the clean up or simply live with it.

EPA implicates fracking in pollution

"In drought-prone and seismically active areas like Huerfano County, which are on the cusp of major oil and gas development, the logical conclusion must be that oil and gas development hold off until our scarce sources for domestic, agricultural and municipal water can be proven to be protected from the contamination that other areas have already experienced," Borthick said.

reply to post by Morningglory

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission last month denied a citizen request for a public hearing because the request didn’t come from a local government entry.

The approval process was fraught with controversy, as the planning and zoning commission refused to let members of the public speak at preliminary meetings on the approval. Scott King, chair of the commission, threatened to forcibly remove citizens from meetings, according to Ceal Smith, of the San Luis Valley Renewable Communities Alliance.

When audience members protested this action, King responded with, “So sue us,” according to Smith.

[color=cyan]*****

This is revealing to say the least !

The magnitude of impact is enormous !

Can you imagine the arrogance of these people !

Despicable.

They're all a bunch of muney hunger mungers.

reply to post by xuenchen

This is revealing to say the least !

The magnitude of impact is enormous !

Can you imagine the arrogance of these people !

Despicable.

They're all a bunch of muney hunger mungers.

Arrogance and greed is the only thing that drives these parasites. Pretty typical of government officials across the board.

Scott King is a local who allowed himself to be seduced by power and money in the name of providing jobs for the rest of us. BS we have all done ok and frankly we prefer to live the way we do. Apparently Scott King doesn't feel that way. He has his sights set higher most likely far away from Huerfano county.

reply to post by jdub297


I'd like to point out something here that makes all the difference and essentially kills your best arguments where they stand, every time. In examples where the right or wrong of either side in a debate results in nothing worse than a civili liability issue or a few people getting sick, the debate is worth having to be sure..but relatively benign whichever way it turns out.

In this case, you admit in both long posts I've seen you make on this thread that speculation is what we have and that is the problem, We can't, as you note, condemn an industry based on guesswork and speculation. I AGREE. The new factor in this debate is that your side being wrong comes at a cost of destroyed cities and dead Americans in a possible Earthquake which never had to happen.

I'm not alone in agreement on the lack of hard facts..and that is the point. Since when did we consider it perfectly acceptable to plow ahead WITHOUT knowing for certain, when the downside is outright catastrophic (Literally) in being wrong?? So...It's the very fact you're right, that makes the opposing point so important and accurate.

In a 'round about way, it's fair to say your fierce defense of the industry actually supports the case to shut them down completely and until we DO KNOW and aren't simply speculating. If I thought that quirk of support was anything but totally accidental and unintentional, I'd thank you for it...but...

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

Since when did we consider it perfectly acceptable to plow ahead WITHOUT knowing for certain, when the downside is outright catastrophic (Literally) in being wrong??

Worth repeating.

Since when did we consider it perfectly acceptable to plow ahead WITHOUT knowing for certain, when the downside is outright catastrophic (Literally) in being wrong??

Can I quote you?

People are willing to go along but in a diligent way. WTH is wrong with that? We've seen too much bad crap in the past.

It's usually rural americans who have to live around this $%!#. We understand the nation's need. We get tax dollars from drilling operations not to mention jobs etc...we're fairly motivated.

It's one thing to make sacrifices for ones country but losing a water well in southern CO is just bad in so many ways. We raise your beef...along the rivers farmers grow grass/corn for their herds. We may live here but you're going to be eating the meat.

We're suppose to shut up and sit down because it's the patriotic thing to do but what about corporations how patriotic are they? They're making sacrifices alright they're sacrificing our world!

Unless the locals kick up a fuss the rest of us really don't know what's going on with our food. Seems like a lot of people really don't care. We'll just import more from China...yeah that's the ticket.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

I'm not alone in agreement on the lack of hard facts..and that is the point. Since when did we consider it perfectly acceptable to plow ahead WITHOUT knowing for certain, when the downside is outright catastrophic (Literally) in being wrong?? So...It's the very fact you're right, that makes the opposing point so important and accurate.

Of course, this ignores the fact that hydro-fracking has been going on for nearly 100years!

How many of the "contaminated" wells were the result of natural processes, faulty water well equipment and poor management? You have no idea because you choose not to consider the most likely alternatives.

Over 1 million wells have been "fracked" across the U.S.
It is only now, with a "preliminary EPA report, a motivated environmental movement, an obviously biased press and an anti-fossil fuels administration, that we have scare-tactics and fear driving this hysteria!

Where are the complaints from the '50s, '60s, '70s?

We "fracked" two stripper-wells on my place in Texas in the '70s, after the Saudi oil embargo.

We also had an older, shallow, water well into the Carrizo Springs Sands formation that drew awful iron-laden water.
The drilling company was kind enough to re-drill our well into a deeper formation that produced abundant, cool,clear water from the Edwards Aquifer.

Our oil and gas production never once threatened our drinking water or that of any of our neighbors. That's 40 years of first-hand experience. Hundreds of well in this formation were fracked at that time, too Not a single complaint in 40 years!

People who ignore science and history are easily led to believe any scare-story that gets the slightest bit of media attention.

And, we all know how reliable American mainstream media are in reporting facts rather than fostering a liberal agenda, don't we?

deny ignorance

jw

reply to post by jdub297


Interesting scenario.

But again, can we see some strong facts.

Your word is probably good but ......

It still sounds like he said she said.

Originally posted by jdub297
reply to post by Wrabbit2000

 

I'm not alone in agreement on the lack of hard facts..and that is the point. Since when did we consider it perfectly acceptable to plow ahead WITHOUT knowing for certain, when the downside is outright catastrophic (Literally) in being wrong?? So...It's the very fact you're right, that makes the opposing point so important and accurate.

Of course, this ignores the fact that hydro-fracking has been going on for nearly 100years!

Over 1 million wells have been "fracked" across the U.S.
It is only now, with a "preliminary EPA report, a motivated environmental movement, an obviously biased press and an anti-fossil fuels administration, that we have scare-tactics and fear driving this hysteria!

Well, on the first part there, I'm going to say this isn't 1911, it's 2011. I'll just bet it's very safe to assume in this case that we've made great strides and advances in this form of drilling in such a long period of doing it. I'll even bet we go deeper, faster, under more pressure and into rock strata that hasn't been previously possible. You know how technology is moving by leaps and bounds in every direction.

That leads into the second point. Honestly, I wasn't even aware of the EPA report. I have little to no interest in what the EPA has to say on anything, as I don't consider them to be more than a political tool for whichever side happens to hold power at any given time. I'm not responding to fear mongering, personally.

As my mini-profile tends to imply, I live ..ahem...uncomfortably close to the New Madrid Seismic Zone. I've watched the wells in Arkansas make great strides....as I've watched Earthquake swarms build in the same 2-3 magnitude range with the occasional 4 something we're seeing in Oklahoma and Texas in close proximity to THOSE wells.


Is this a new thing by some factor or series of them in methods that have changed? Perhaps the Earth is a bit more temperamental to it, as we watch the Ring of Fire start coming to life and other areas of the Planet become just a bit more active than normal. I don't suggest we stop all drilling in some ignorant fit of overkill. I just suggest we see a public effort with the best geologists on the Planet to FIND OUT.....before the 200 year Anniversary of the New Madrid Quakes (Right NOW ...as it just so happens) becomes the SECOND series of them.

check out guy Arkansas they had quakes almost everyday last year sometimes minutes apart up to 4.0 starting in oct. due to fracking

I just freaked out on chat trying to get help with this! Our Town hall is hosting a phone meeting and I was in que to ask my questions regarding fracking as they are trying to bring it here! Well I quoted your post, but when I went to ask about the unauthorised testing being done I got disconnected...lmao!

Oh and their response to your quote was, we won't be drilling deep here.....

Funny....I just finished a few wells in Eastern Ohio and SW Pa. The vertical depths were around 8500 in Pa, and horizontal in the lower Marcellus Shale for about a mile. There isn't any fresh water at this depth to pollute.

The contamination happens when the casing leaks at depths shallower than 1000 ft. The vertical well is installed using Air drilling methods. Air is used instead of mud to move the cuttings to the surface so drilling fluids do not come in contact with the formations with usable fresh water. These relatively shallow aquifers are cased and sealed off from the well with drill casing and cement. This prevents fresh water from coming into contact with drilling fluids.

These aquifers can only be contaminated if the casing is not installed or installed poorly. Hydraulic fracking is the process of injecting a sand/water mixture into the shale formation to open the shale and allow the gas to flow through the sand to the well casing.

If the casing is installed poorly, I mean they do not allow the cement to cure properly before pressuring up the hole, brine water and maybe a little drilling mud can migrate up the edges of the well annulus into the fresh water aquifer. However this is very rare.

It can happen but it doesn't happen enough to warrant a panic ban on drilling, however, the pressures may be great enough to activate fault lines under certain conditions. This is usually caused by the injection of used fracking fluids into shallower brine aquifers. It's typically not the drilling or the well installation that causes the damage. It is the fluid disposal that does the damage.

The bigger problem is the oil company stealing natural gas from below all the privately owned land above the reservoir. They only pay the person who owns the lease. Then they drill down the property lines for miles and the gas flows from the adjacent property owner's mineral rights without compensation. This is theft, and it is happening all over the country.