An excerpt from GreenMuze.com:
Ugly Reality of Fracking
4.19.2010
After her well water was contaminated by nearby fracking in 2006, Ernst decided to go public, showing visiting reporters how she could light her tap water on fire, and speaking out about Alberta land owners’ problems with the industry, especially Calgary-based EnCana. EnCana is Canada’s second biggest energy company (after Suncor) and is now also a major player in British Columbia, with hundreds of natural-gas wells in the province.
Ernst, a biologist and environmental consultant to the oil and gas industry, says EnCana “told us ‘we would never fracture near your water.’ But the company fracked into our aquifer in that same year [2004].” By 2005, she says, “My water began dramatically changing, going bad. I was getting horrible burns and rashes from taking a shower, and then my dogs refused to drink the water. That’s when I began to pay attention.” More than fifteen water-wells had gone bad in the little community.
Tests revealed high levels of ethane, methane, and benzene in Ernst’s water. “EnCana told us they use the same gelled [fracking] fluids as in the States.” Fracking has become a huge controversy in the US, with pending legislation that would impact its regulation.
Ernst says she heard from “at least fifty other landowners the first year” she went public, and she continues to get calls. Groundwater contamination from fracking “is pretty widespread” in Alberta, “but they’re trying to keep it hidden.” Canada has no national water standards and conducts little information gathering about groundwater.
Read the complete article at GreenMuze.com: Ugly Reality of Fracking
Tip of the hat to FrackMountain for bringing this article to our attention.
Tags: Canada, contamination, EnCana, fracking, water wells
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Q1. If a tanker-load of chemicals is spilled in the forest, and no officially accredited observers are there to document it, did the spill ever occur?
A1. Not if it happened on a gas well pad!
Q2. If a lateral crack forms in the side of an underground aquifer while a gas well is being drilled a mile away, did the drilling activity cause the ruin of that aquifer?
A2. No; the pathway will never be proven because no one has both the resources and the desire to carry out that kind of investigation.
Q3. If the carcinogen 4-nitroquinoline-1-oxide (4-NQO) suddenly turns up in a river near the discharge pipe of a municipal waste treatment plant which accepts gas well flowback fluids, did the carcinogen come from those flowback fluids?
A3. No. Energy companies don’t use 4-NQO as an additive, and they’ve never studied how it is formed underground from the chemicals they do use. And they won’t disclose what those chemicals are.
Q4. When people living downwind of a “holding pond” develop nosebleeds, rashes, labored breathing, nausea, unexplained weight loss and mental confusion, could their symptoms be due to the volatile organic compounds wafting from the pond’s surface?
A4. No. There’s nothing in those ponds but “water, cuttings, sand, soap and canola oil”.
Each of these four questions represents a group of real-life incidents, and they point to extreme avoidance of full-body contact with the truth by energy companies and the regulators who coddle them.
I and scientists like me are trying to strip away the fog, but we should all recognize that the fog is still there. I have yet to witness full disclosure — or anything even close — of chemicals used, incidents which should have been reported, or accurate handling of the statistics regarding those that were reported.
Until some of this clears up, no scientist, no matter how diligent, can claim to have “the objective science”. My $0.02 worth…
Ron Bishop
Tags: science
Shreveport Times (Louisiana) report:
Chesapeake, Schlumberger fined $22,000 each in cows’ deaths
By Vickie Welborn • vwelborn@gannett.com • March 25, 2010
KEITHVILLE – Chesapeake Energy Corp. and its contractor Schlumberger Technology Corp. each must pay $22,000 for violating state law in connection with the deaths almost a year ago of 17 cows at a natural gas well site.
Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality mailed identical letters spelling out the settlement agreement with both companies on Tuesday. Each was informed that it must advertise the agreement and invite public comment.
Both companies deny the material discharged from the natural gas well site killed the cows, deny violations were committed and neither makes an admission of liability, according to the settlement document signed by LDEQ Assistant Secretary Paul D. Miller. Included in each fine is $1,300 in enforcement costs.
In a joint statement from Chesapeake’s Kevin McCotter and Schlumberger’s Stephen T. Harris, both companies acknowledged today entering into a proposed settlement agreement.
. . . . .
Citizens noticed the dying cows April 28 in a pasture owned by Cecil and Tyler Williams on state Highway 169 near the corner of Keatchie-Marshall Road in south Caddo Parish. Witnesses reported hearing them bellowing and seeing them bleeding before they fell over dead.
At the time, Schlumberger, as a contractor of Chesapeake, was performing routine fracturing of the natural gas well. LDEQ determined during its investigation that fluid leaked from the well pad then ran into an adjacent pasture after a rain.
Read full story at:
Tags: cattle, Chesapeake, deaths, hydraulic fracturing, Louisiana, Schlumberger
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Posted in Bad Neighbors, Community Effects, Fraccidents, Gas Drilling Accidents, Mean Energy
Have you noticed how often the industry and its sympathizers repeat the refrain that fracking happens so far below the water table from which drinking water is drawn that there’s no danger of frack fluids getting into drinking water? This despite the evidence that stuff really does get around, even if they don’t understand how.
There’s another way drinking water gets contaminated: surface spills. Spilled substances can seep down to groundwater. Or, as at Buckeye Creek, a town’s drinking water can be contaminated by spills that find their way into surface waters.
In late November the Sootypaws website and blog posted an extensive update on the mysterious spill at Buckeye Creek, in Doddridge County, WV.
Make yourself a cup of coffee and settle in for an excellent and thorough account of what is known.
Timeline and links to more
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Tags: Buckeye Creek, Doddridge County, WV
A November 4th press release from the PA DEP reveals that while “numerous” people in Dimock have been without good water for, oh, a year, give or take, it takes an agreement process with DEP to force Cabot Oil & Gas to address residents’ need for “replacement” water. It takes an agreement process with DEP to force Cabot Oil & Gas to release to DEP a complete list of people who have reported issues with their water.
DEP says this will provide a “long-term solution.” That seems optimistic. How do you “replace” someone’s own clean, clear, safe spring or well water? And, you have to wonder, eventually, after northeastern PA and New York’s Southern Tier are pincushioned with gas wells, where will the “replacement” water come from? And what will we use to schlep it from hither to thither? Oh, yeah, now I remember: diesel fuel made from foreign oil. Yup, that stuff that natural gas was supposed to free us from depending on.
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Pennsylvania DEP Reaches Agreement with Cabot to Prevent Gas Migration,
Restore Water Supplies in Dimock Township
Agreement Requires DEP Approval for Well Casing, Cementing
MEADVILLE, Pa., Nov. 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Department of
Environmental Protection and Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. have executed a consent
order and agreement that will provide a long-term solution for migrating gas
that has affected 13 water supplies in Dimock Township, Susquehanna County.
The affected area covers nine square miles around Carter Road.
The consent order and agreement outlines a process that will give DEP more
oversight of Cabot’s new well construction work in the affected area. Prior to
drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or hydro fracking, the company will submit
well casing and cementing plans to DEP. Once DEP provides written approval,
Cabot may proceed.
“The goal of the consent order and agreement is to ensure a long-term
resolution to issues that have emerged in Dimock,” said DEP Northwest Regional
Director Kelly Burch. “The company will focus on the integrity of the wells in
the affected area in an attempt to determine the source of the migrating gas.”
This past week, Cabot has provided an interim solution for all of the homes
where water supplies have been affected. Cabot must develop a plan by March 31
to restore or replace the affected water supplies permanently.
Under the consent order and agreement, Cabot must additionally submit to DEP:
– Information on all parties who have contacted the company about water
quantity or quality issues; and
– A plan that specifically identifies how the company intends to prove the
integrity of the casing and cementing on existing wells and fix
defective casing and cementing by March 31.
If Cabot fails to fix the defective casing and cementing by the March
deadline, the company must plug defective wells or implement another
alternative as approved by DEP.
In addition, Cabot paid a $120,000 civil penalty for violations of the Oil and
Gas Act, the Solid Waste Management Act and the Clean Streams Law.
The consent order and agreement caps a DEP investigation that began early this
year when numerous Dimock area residents reported evidence of natural gas in
their water supplies. DEP inspectors discovered that the well casings on some
of Cabot’s natural gas wells were cemented improperly or insufficiently,
allowing natural gas to migrate to groundwater.
On Sept. 25, following a series of wastewater spills, DEP ordered Cabot to
cease hydro fracking natural gas wells throughout Susquehanna County. The
prohibition was removed after the company completed a number of important
engineering and safety tasks.
Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. is a Delaware-based company with a mailing address in
Pittsburgh.
For more information on oil and gas wells, visit www.depweb@state.pa.us,
keyword: Oil and gas.
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From the Chesapeake Bay Foundation blog:
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My Road Trip to Frackville, Heart of the Drilling Boom
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“Downstream Strategies, the company I used to analyze the water forwarded the WVDEP report to me and they said that all of their questions were not answered from the WVDEP which they requested under the FOIA. The just sent a second FOIA request to get the info they originally asked. Sen. Rockefeller’s office out of Fairmont called me last Thursday (I sent a letter and pictures to him in D.C.) and said they wanted to make sure the Governor had responded to me (he did) and that I had received the answers I had been seeking. After I found out they had to do a 2nd FOIA request I called them back and left a message, suggesting a phone call from them to James Martin would be helpful.
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“The creek cleaning consisted of the drilling company spraying the rocks and gunk downstream into cachment areas and then being vacuumed up. My concern was the high orange marks in the sandy soil going up the banks and being imbedded into the soil. I don’t know if they addressed that or not, they may not have even seen that. Also they had pulled the used filters out of the creek and had left them on the soil for some time also. Those were recently picked up though. I am coming back from Colorado and will be there Wednesday for a week and will spend some time going up and down the creek looking closely. I guess the lack of rain and low water has hindered the process. My new beef is that if a drilling company, the ones who produce this toxic waste, will be cleaning up their own mess, they really need to know what they are doing and have a plan in place. According the report from officer Scranage, per the DEP report I just read, he found that a new crew was on the job the second day and was going about it backwards. If the water is low and there is a lack of rain to help move the water down into cachment areas, they need to be doing something else, rather than waiting for rain. For the first 2 weeks the creek languished with oil covering the water and smelling acrid. I believe they improperly ‘limed the area’ on our property. When I questioned the inspectors and also asked James Martin about all the lime put down along the stream banks, changing the ph of the water, he only said ‘there won’t be any more liming’.
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“Thanks again for the support.”
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Louanne Fatora
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Tags: accidents, Buckeye Creek, contamination, deaths, Doddridge County, hydraulic fracturing, spill, wildlife, WV
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