We are fracking our water away
- Randi Pokladnik
- December 15, 2017
- 1569
The entire process of high-pressure hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” is full of dangerous activities that affect human health and the environment. This isn’t, as they say, “Your grandfather’s oil and gas industry.” Yesterday’s easy to reach oil and gas is gone, and now unconventional methods are required to release hydrocarbons locked deep in shale layers below us.
In order to access the oil and gas, a mixture of water, proprietary chemicals and sand is blasted down into the earth’s rock layers via horizontally drilled wells, some drilled as deep as 10,000 feet. This causes massive fractures in the bedrock. Sand holds those newly created spaces open. This allows the oil or gas to seep out and travel up the well casing.
Millions of tons of sand from Wisconsin and Minnesota are mined and used in the fracking mixture. A single well can require 10,000 tons of sand, according to Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources. Both processes of mining and mixing the sand expose miners and gas and oil workers to silica dust from the sand. This dust can cause silicosis and lung cancer.
Hundreds of chemicals are used in the fracking mixture. Substances like arsenic, benzene, cadmium, lead, formaldehyde, chlorine and mercury are associated with either developmental or reproductive health effects.
Many of the chemicals used are not even disclosed, due to patents and other legal issues. A recent study in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology reported that out of 1,021 chemicals identified in hydraulic fracturing liquids, 781 (76 percent) were lacking toxicity information.
One of the most troubling procedures of the fracking process is the withdrawal of anywhere from 4-6 million gallons of surface water per well to create the fracking mixture. Just this spring, the Caldwell Journal-Leader reported that the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District approved a second short-term water sale from Seneca Lake with Antero Resources. The district got approximately $9,000 a day, and the industry withdrew about 135 million gallons from the lake.
Once a well has been “fracked,” only 20 percent of this water is recovered from the wells. No longer fresh water, this fluid is known as “flowback” water. This contaminated water is now a waste product, as is the naturally occurring brine, drill cuttings, sludge and solids brought to the surface of a well during the drilling and fracking processes.
The Marcellus shale layer has been known for its high level of radioactivity. This radiation isn’t a threat to us when it’s deep below the surface, but once the fracking mixture comes into contact with the shale, it too becomes radioactive.
Studies show the fracking wastes can contain uranium-238, radium-226, uranium-234, thorium-230, lead-210 and polonium-210. Radium-226 is water soluble and has a half-life of 1,600 years.
More than 3,900 accidental spills at fracking sites in North Dakota are leaving that region with a legacy of radioactivity, according to a study conducted by Duke University. Unlike oil spills, which can be broken down by biological activity, the salty, radioactive material in the spills is resistant to bioremediation.
The industry must dispose of these wastes. The solids can often end up in landfills that are not built to accept this type of waste. The preferred method of disposal for the liquids is to inject them into Class II injection wells.
Athens County has become one of the major locations for Class II injection wells, accepting much of Ohio’s fracking waste water. Unfortunately out-of-state wastes are trucked across state lines from Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other states to be disposed of in Ohio.
FracTracker Alliance estimated that close to 90 percent of the waste brine injected into Class II wells in Ohio comes from out of state. Studies show this waste can migrate and contaminate the groundwater through cracks and leaks in well casings. Studies also show that injection wells can trigger seismic activity. Ohio and other states conducting fracking have seen a surge of earthquakes since the recent oil and gas boom.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005, often referred to as the “Halliburton loophole," has exempted oil and gas industries from all major federal regulations including the Clean Water Act. The Government Accountability Office released a report in September 2014 showing that Ohio was the only state among the eight it studied that allows waste fluids from oil and gas wells to be disposed of without disclosure of the chemicals it contains.
Recently the Connecticut General Assembly revealed that New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio allow production brine to be spread on the roads as a deicer based on “its chemical composition, application rate and other criteria.”
Recently introduced Ohio House Bill 393 would “authorize the sale of brine from fracking operations as a commodity used to control deicing, dust suppression and other applications on roadways.”
With winter snow coming our way soon, salt trucks will be frequenting our roadways. It is possible those trucks could be spraying wastes from fracking. Is this something Ohio citizens want on their roads? Water is life. Isn’t it time to step up and protect it?