Fractured Logic: The Peril in “Fracking” Chemicals
If your family got its water from your own well (and a lot of people do), what would you say to someone who wanted to pump a whole grab-bag of chemicals into the ground nearby, including some that are known to be toxic or to cause cancer?
Just guessing here, but I suspect you’d send him on his way with a few choice words.
You might be slightly reassured if he told you that, actually, he was going to drill a well thousands of feet deep and inject his chemicals into solid rock so that his toxic cocktail would never reach your well water.
But again, just guessing, you’d probably ask a lot of questions and demand some very strong controls and oversight of the process. You might even ask who regulates this stuff to ensure that your water isn’t at risk. It would hardly set your mind at ease to find out that this particular activity has been almost totally exempted from federal laws that are supposed to protect the purity of your, and the nation’s, drinking water.
Remarkably, this little scenario is a pretty fair microcosm of something that is unfolding across the country, from the Northeast to Texas to the far West, with the pell-mell growth of a technology that enables energy companies to capture vast quantities of natural gas locked away in deeply buried shale and other rock. This technology, also used for oil drilling, involves injecting a liquid stew of chemicals, sand and water under very high pressure into underground rock formations. This process, whose technical name is hydraulic fracturing, cracks open the rock and allows trapped gas to escape. “Fracking,” as it is commonly known, is an advance that has been good for energy costs, but it also creates real risks to the nation’s supplies of drinking water. It’s a threat not just for people who have their own wells, but also for major cities such as New York, where everyone is supplied by public waterworks.
EWG Senior Counsel Dusty Horwitt has spent six months looking into the issue. EWG has just issued a report on his findings. Among them:
- Companies are injecting natural gas wells with millions of gallons of fracking fluids with minimal regulatory supervision to ensure that they don’t get into drinking water supplies.
- The quantities of fracking fluids used in a single well contain so much benzene and other toxics that they could potentially contaminate more than the amount of water New York state consumes in a day.
- When Congress exempted fracking from the Safe Water Drinking Act, it drew the line at the use of diesel oil, which contains chemicals that are highly toxic and/or cancer causing, including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene. But one officials said use of diesel is still common, and the companies’ own statements suggest that they are still using diesel.
- Even when drilling companies don’t use diesel, they rely on other “petroleum distillates” that contain many of the same dangerous substances. Records obtained by EWG showed that some fracking fluids have up to 93 times as much benzene as diesel, but no one regulates their use.
- Major fracking companies repeatedly ignored EWG’s requests for information on the precise nature of their fracking fluid. Horwitt pierced the veil of corporate secrecy by obtaining documents filed by industry with New York state and Pennsylvania officials.
- At least two state officials, and even one regional federal regulator, apparently misinterpret the Safe Drinking Water Act, insisting that all fracking chemicals, including diesel, are exempt from the law’s permitting requirements. Only in Wyoming are officials keeping an eye on the chemicals being used in fracturing, and even there they require companies to disclose only the trade names of their fluids, not the chemical components. to determine whether drillers are using diesel.
The risks of fracking aren’t just theoretical. Drinking water contamination and property damage have been linked to hydraulic fracturing in four states – Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wyoming. In one incident that polluted a Colorado creek, the drilling company is still trying to clean it up – four years later.
The conclusion is inescapable: the petroleum distillates used in hydraulic fracturing pose a serious threat to the nation’s water supplies, but those risks have been largely ignored by federal and state regulators. So EWG is making several important recommendations for action by Congress and federal agencies, before disaster strikes:
- Congress must reverse itself and require companies to comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act when using hydraulic fracturing.
- Congress should require drilling companies to disclose publicly the chemicals they use hydraulic fracturing in every well.
- The U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees drilling on public land, must use its authority to require such disclosures.
- Congress should investigate federal and state oversight of hydraulic fracturing and insist that federal and state personnel be properly informed about existing law.
- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should use its powers to find out whether companies are using diesel and enforce the existing permit requirements.
Hydro-fracking is a common practice in the water well drilling industry. For this, water is pumped into a well under very high pressure to fracture the rock and increase water flow. If plain water works for this process, why does fracking for the natural gas industry need to use all kinds of toxic substances to make it work?
The environment will never be safe as long as toxic chemicals are used in fracturing fluids. There are alternative green chemicals or cryogenic fracturing which requires no toxic fluids. What is everyone waiting for? Switch to safer green chemicals or more advanced cleaner drilling technologies. Leave the toxic fracturing chemicals which Halliburton makes billions on each year for Halliburton to cry over. They can dream up a new toxic brew for some other industry other than natural gas drilling which destroys our environment. That is the solution to pollution. http://splashdownpa.blogspot.com/2009/12/lng-and-lin-can-be-alternative.html
Make laws which apply to private water supplies and ground water. Someone loses sight when they want laws for public water supplies. The safe drinking water act only applies to public water supplies. These companies are in rural areas destroying air, water and soil with federal exemptions to the water, air and soil. You name it, the natural gas industry was exempted from regulatory oversight for your air, water and soil. Government did not have the best interest of their citizens in mind when they created the natural gas industry exemptions. What kind of government did you say we have? By the people for the people or by the government for the government?
Don’t blame gas companies for pollution, they do what the federal government tells them to do.
Don’t blame your state environmental agency for not doing their job, they are doing what the federal government told them to do.
Laws were created in 2005 to protect the natural gas industry.
For example: Bush and Cheney (gas buddies) knew fracturing chemicals were needed to produce natural gas in shale formations. To protect gas ventures they ensured when the public discovered the dangers from toxic chemicals in their environment, it would be a roadblock to profit.
Government officials had to make a decision in the best interest of the country and sometimes those decisions include sacrificing lives. The federal government had been warned in 2005 from EPA, that the fracturing chemicals could be harmful to humans.
Bush and Cheney knew the only solution to future pollution was to create special exemptions for the gas industry.
Greed worked hard to protect ventures for wealth. Why do you money was placed ahead of citizens health? It is a known fact that the EPA health study on fracturing chemicals was compromised, why?
People complain about their state officials and agencies not protecting their health from natural gas pollution.
Do you think government agencies and officials choose to put blinders on because they too could use the gold now protected by federal exemption rules?
Forget the FRAC ACT.
So what if you know what chemicals are being used for drilling?
For instance: If you knew all the toxic fracturing chemicals used to drill with near your water supply, will you get water testing done on any or all of those toxic chemicals to ensure none of them are in your drinking water?
Also, do you know toxic chemicals can remain in subsurface formations which do not flow back to the pits…and eventually could seep into your drinking water after you have already had post water testing done…months later?
Stop trying to find a solution for fracturing chemical pollution.
The federal government found the solution to pollution, they exempted it in 2005. As a good citizen would do for their country, drink it up.
Research the natural gas industry exemptions for the: Clean Air Act; Clean Water Act; Safe Drinking Water Act which applies only to public water supplies; Storm water runoff, etc.
Government always pursues wealth and power. Why would you think as a citizen we should hinder pursuits which put us in second place: First place is: Wealth Second place is: Health.
Salute the natural gas industry because the federal government gave them congressional metals of exemptions; the natural gas industry is the only industry which can legally pollute the air, water and soil.
Tell the government to put people back in the government.
Remove fracturing chemicals from natural gas drilling process. What more do you need folks? EPA said in 2005 fracturing chemicals had known health effects and it was covered up!
Allow citizens to choose those who perform a study health effects for fracturing chemicals.
EPA has already shown their studies can be compromised by “Uncle Sam”.
Question: Who is to blame for fracturing chemicals now polluting the water which are known health hazardous to humans, wildlife and aquatic life?
Thank you so much for the information which I did not know about. That Cheney is everywhere. Thinking…
Thank you all for your comments. I’m glad to hear that you’re thinking about this, Gloria. The next step for all of us is to take action. There are plans to drill tens of thousands of new gas wells using “fracking” techniques in the watersheds of New York, Philadelphia and other major cities across the country. We need to talk to local, state and federal officials. Get them to focus on the risks to our water supplies and put a halt to this pellmell process. We need energy, but it makes no sense to let this orgy of drilling take place with virtually no meaningful regulations or protections. Once our water supplies are polluted, it will be too late.