Hydraulic fracturing, more trouble than its worth?

By: Silke Mahardy, '13 | Staff Reporter

Posted: 3/12/10

Until very recently, natural gas deposits embedded deep underground were impossible to extract. With a fairly new process developed by Halliburton, known as hydraulic fracturing, those untapped gas reserves can now be brought to the surface, but not without a potential cost to the environment and threat to the safety of drinking water.

The Marcellus Shale formation, stretching from New York to Tennessee, holding one of the world's largest known natural gas deposits trapped 6,000 - 10,000 feet below the surface is now open for development. Proponents of drilling believe that it will help reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and the jobs created and revenues collected by states and landowners signing on to the drilling will help our nation's ailing economy. Others believe that this may spur an environmental battle, the likes of which have not been seen in New York before.

Hydraulic fracturing involves sending up to three million gallons of water-per-well under extremely high pressure, down as far as 10,000 feet below the surface, and then horizontally into the shale formations. The water is mixed with sand and proprietary chemicals to aid in the extraction process. This highly pressurized mixture causes the shale to crack and tiny fissures to form. The sand then holds the fissures open allowing the gas to escape and flow back up to the surface to be piped or trucked away for processing.

Of grave concern to anyone living in areas of gas drilling where hydraulic fracturing, or fracking as it is commonly referred to, may occur should be the chemicals used in the process. As part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, written behind closed doors by then Vice President (and former chairman and CEO of Halliburton from 1995 - 2000) Dick Cheney and executives from within the energy industry, hydraulic fracturing was exempted from Safe Drinking Water Act regulation and consequently Environmental Protection Agency oversight. Over 340 toxic chemicals are known to be used for hydraulic fracturing. The health hazards of the chemicals used in the process are, on an almost daily basis, becoming clearer as more documentation comes out of western states where hydraulic fracturing is ongoing.

Although there is little chance of the fracking fluids migrating up from the shale beds to aquifers supplying drinking water, hundreds of cases of water contamination have been reported in other states. The sheer volume in question has the potential to contaminate aquifers and waterways from surface spills and seepage out of the open pits, as large as five acres, planned on being used to hold the wastewater, or production brine.

There is currently a hold on any permitting of hydraulic fracturing in New York while the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) reviews the draft supplement to the Generic Environmental Impact Statement for Oil and Gas drilling released last September. Safe disposal of the wastewater is one of the main issues under consideration. Each of the options have inherent threats to both the environment and the safety of drinking water. As there are very few wastewater treatment facilities currently in New York that are capable of accepting the production brine, the only other options currently remaining are trucking the fluids as far away as Ohio or holding them in underground storage wells.

As the chemicals used in hydro-fracking are currently not tested for in treatment facilities, no one knows what chemicals could be released back into the environment. The spent water also contains minerals, salts, and metals, high levels of which cannot currently be removed by existing systems. The salinity of water leaving treatment plants could create havoc in the freshwater ecosystems into which they may be released.

Complicating matters more is the radioactivity inherent in the Marcellus Shale. A recent DEC analysis of 13 samples of drilling wastewater collected in New York found 267 times the safe limit of radium-226 as determined by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. As a result, disposal of the wastewater will have to be highly monitored as will any long-term workers, both in the drilling process and those at wastewater treatment facilities.

Another cause for concern, especially to landowners opposed to the fracking process for any of the aforementioned reasons, is compulsory integration. A form of eminent domain mediated by the DEC, it gives the gas companies rights of extraction from non-leased properties in areas where they hold 60% of signed rights within a determined spacing unit.

Proponents of drilling cite the creation of jobs as a benefit to the depressed upstate economy. These jobs, however, will be short lived with the majority going to "outsiders" with previous experience in the industry. It can be argued that building many new access roads may go to local contractors, but once the drilling is over we will be left with countless miles of obsolete roadways leading nowhere while losing both cropland and pristine woodland in the process.

Each well will require an incessant flow of trucks, initially in the development of the wells, later supplying the fresh water and finally trucking away the contaminated fluids. How green can this "clean energy" source really be when it is so dependent upon oil for every aspect of its production?

The increased truck traffic will adversely affect local infrastructure, with the possibility of increased property taxes to offset the cost of needed repairs. The compressors and trucks, running 24 hours a day, will destroy the peace and tranquility of our beautiful upstate region. Despite the strongest environmental policies the DEC may enact to oversee hydraulic fracturing, accidents are inevitable and pollution of our air, water and land will occur.

Unfortunately, hydraulic fracturing is here to stay. We live in a time where conservation mandates are critical, but will never happen because no one stands to profit from them. As long as there is one drop of oil or gas left to extract from the earth, it will done at the expense of every ecosystem on the planet. The Marcellus Shale watershed, supplying nine million New Yorkers with some of the cleanest water in the world, is up for grabs.