No fracking way

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No fracking way

By NICOLE GUGINO
OBSERVER Staff Writer
January 9, 2011

Hydraulic fracturing – also known as hydrofracking or just fracking – may not sound familiar, but this process of extracting natural gas is becoming a household term as controversy emerges.

Hydrofracking is a complicated process of extracting natural gas from rock formations like the Marcellus Shale in the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio. This process can be vertical or horizontal – both of which may pose a threat to drinking water.

Hydrofracking uses three ingredients to access the gas – water, sand and fracking fluid. Water and sand alone are harmless enough; the fracking fluid is the reason groups are rallying against the drilling process. Fracking fluid is a mixture of 500 or more chemicals used for different purposes in the process that allows the drilling of a well and the fracturing of the rock to occur, releasing gas.

Fracking fluid has been described by different sources as very different things – from a detergent to a carcinogenic concoction.

SPRINGVILLE

Hydrofracking of gas wells has moved from the west to the east and has moved north from Pennsylvania to New York.

A meeting of anti-fracking groups in Springville last month brought a concerned crowd to hear about what may come to the area.

A woman in the audience warned that a gas company had surveyed Sprague Brook Park, north of Springville, for gas drilling.

The main concerns of anti-fracking groups center around a loophole in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 which exempts the gas industry and specifically hydrofracking from about 10 environmental regulatiosn including the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Another concern is contamination of ground water. In many places across the country people sign leases with gas companies. In most cases the companies extract the gas and nothing goes wrong. However, reportedly for some this is not true. If a well is not properly sealed from the water table during drilling, then natural gas and fracking fluid can leak into the ground water residents use in wells for drinking water.

“My husband and I didn’t know what was going on with our water until we watched this documentary on HBO called GasLand. After we watched GasLand he went to check our water to see if it lit on fire and it did,” Natalie Brant of Springville said.

Brant later had her water tested and was told not to drink, bathe or wash dishes or clothes in the water. Brant is frightened for the health of her eight children.

“Gas companies lead you to believe that drinking this is as safe as drinking laundry detergent. Who here thinks that drinking laundry detergent is safe?” she asked.

Another concern is that after a well has been fracked, the water (mixed with fracking fluid) is left over. The gas companies are supposed to have this water treated, but allegedly in the past have not done so. Instead, according to the documentary, gas companies allegedly evaporate the water (and chemicals) into the air or secretly dump it on dirt roads.

GASLAND

GasLand is a documentary on hydrofracking, written and directed by Josh Fox, a Pennsylvania native. This documentary has received notice from many for its disturbing images of water that lights on fire and the health and property damage allegedly caused by hydrofracking across the country.

In the documentary Josh Fox, who lives in the New York City Watershed, begins an investigation into hydrofracking after receiving a letter asking if a gas company could lease his land for gas drilling.

Fox tours the country and hears similar stories in many states of water contamination, heath problems and legally helpless land owners.

He brings the story back to his home where he fears that drilling will effect his childhood home and which has a creek that feeds into a water supply that distributes fresh water to over 15 million people in three states.

PROFESSOR WEIGHS IN

Since the release of the film GasLand, some organizations have tired to debunk the claims made in the documentary and others to affirm them. SUNY Fredonia Professor Gary Lash, an expert on the Marcellus Shale, had a few criticisms of the film himself.

“My problem with that whole thing is that there is no scientific backing to that whole movie and of course it’s a pretty complicated process that they are trying to do, but again the physics behind fracking are pretty inconsistent with cracks coming up the water table,” he explained the cracks made by the fracking in the shale will not work their way back up thousands of feet to the water table.

“But having said that, there is nothing wrong with regulating. Any responsible operator wants oversight because they don’t want to be blamed for something if anything goes wrong.”

He explained concerns with the left over water from fracking. “What they are doing now is these closed loop systems where they’re sending the water through a treatment system on site and then using that water again.”

He also explained that natural gas flowing in creeks is natural and can be found in creeks all over including the Canadaway creek. He explained that the pictures of the dead fish and birds in waterways near Pittsburgh in the film was not caused by natural gas.

“Some of the chemical fingerprints that they have found and which wasn’t addressed in the film, is chemical runoff from (coal) mining.”

“Just about any well that is drilled any more is fracked. You’ve got to break up the rock to release the gas from it. The water tables are generally no more than a couple hundred feet and their targets are at thousands of feet. What they will do is, when they drill, they will case the well, they put multiple layers of metal casing and each layer is separated by cement, so the goal there is to not allow anything that is going down into the well or coming out of the well to interact with the water table,” he explained.

“When they fracture they use water and a very small amount of chemicals, with things like detergent to reduce the surface tension of the water and there is some biocides in there to kill any microbes and some other things and then they pump in sand after that to hold the cracks open and the gas migrates out the cracks.”

Murphy’s law is still applicable to fracking process according to Lash. “There is a chance that anything could go wrong in anything we do,” he admitted.

When asked if residents should worry about their water if they have a gas lease, he said to do your homework.

“The question they would ask (the as company) is ‘what does the operator plan to do to protect the aquifer?’ and make sure they follow all of the state guidelines for casing the well … people entering into a lease have every right to make sure that’s going to be followed.” He recommended baseline testing before and after drilling.

It takes a great amount of pressure and high temperatures to create natural gas. Chautauqua County, according to Lash, is undesirable for fracking. However the Marcellus Shale near Binghamton, Cayuga and Chemung counties is a mile down and thick – perfect for drilling.

Lash originally estimated 1,500 trillion cubic feet of gas in the marcellus Shale, but new research may show that that is a low estimate. “This takes on more meaning when you know that the U.S. uses 19 trillion cubic feet of gas per year,” Lash explained the potential of the shale.

“I’m as much of an environmentalist and liberal politically as anybody but I think this is something that can done responsibly. I think that there is an awful lot of misinformation out there right now and if we look at this scientifically, and it is a scientific and engineering problem, I think with the proper safeguards in place that it can be done responsibly. And if you combine natural gas with wind and solar I think we are moving in the right direction,” he added.

WHAT LANDOWNERS CAN DO

Due to the lack of action at the federal and state level, groups at the meeting in Springville recommended bringing the fight to a more local forum.

Sarah Buckley, of Wales in Niagara County, recommended going to local town boards and recommending water bans to prevent drilling in areas.

“Where I have some hope for protecting ourselves is in the towns … Some towns in New York state and Pennsylvania have passed bans … a small town in Pennsylvania has passed a ban that is a water rights ordinance … they said they would not allow the companies to source the water to frack, they won’t allow the water to be transported in to do the fracking … So, this in a sense prohibits the fracking,” Buckley said.

As a private land-owner Buckley recommended baseline water and foundation tests – which can be costly, just in case gas drilling on a property goes wrong and needs to be litigated. Buckley also recommended baseline tests of roads for towns to protect themselves.

Sarah Buckley can be contacted at 713-7780 or at ssbuckley@gmail.com for information on water testing and town level bans on hydrofracking.

The non-profit organization Western New York Land Conservancy offered help with conservation easements on land to protect land from anything that may harm its quality, like hydrofracking. The group can be contacted by phone at 687-1225 or on the their website www.wnylc.org.

Albert Brown of Frack Action Buffalo also noted that although Josh Fox was offered almost $100,000 to drill on his 19 acres, some who have leased their land in Western New York have sold their mineral rights away for $5 an acre.

Brown cited a Cornell University study that reported the towns drawn in to the fracking scheme with the promise of money in return, did not benefit at all from allowing gas companies to frack in their towns.

“If you look at increased truck traffic, for one fracking job you’re talking over 1,000 trucks and each of the wells on those paths can be fracked up to ten times. So 1,000 times 10 for one well and if there are 10 wells on that path, it’s just astronomical the number of trucks coming in and out,” Brown said.

According to Brown, because old wells are not producing gas like they used to, gas companies can use this new method of fracking to drill deeper, but are not obligated to notify residents if the company owns the mineral rights.

Frack Action Buffalo is trying to reach out to the Southern Tier and can be contacted through Albert Brown by e-mail at beingsamadhi@gmail.com.

There will be a follow-up meeting on hydrofracking in the Concord Town Hall, 86 Franklin Street, on Thursday Jan. 13 at 6 p.m.

IN SUMMARY

As one side argues that hydrofracking is safe and good for jobs and U.S. energy interests, the other side argues that the health and environmental risks are to great to continue.

The film GasLand is clearly lobbying for one side of the issue, however after viewing the documentary, some facts stood out.

The first, federal and state level regulation are lacking. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 exempted hyrdofracking from environmental safety laws and in a recent veto by former Gov. David Paterson. The moratorium to stop vertical and horizontal drilling in New York until it was further investigated was shot down. Instead, Paterson gave an executive order which only bans horizontal fracking and excludes vertical, which has been said to be the more popular of the two in New York state.

The second, expressed by John Hanger, the Secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection, in his interview with Josh Fox. He said no form of energy is perfect.

Whether it is fossil fuels, solar panels or wind mills, there is always a drawback.

Prof. Gary Lash agreed with this statement. “No, they aren’t. You aren’t going to get anything for free and what we are trying to do is reduce our impact on the environment. Even if you take something like windmills, for example, use light earth elements which are coming from countries that aren’t very friendly with us, and there are finite amounts available, there production is rough on the environment … the same thing with solar panels the rare earth elements that we need for solar panels are what they call ‘endangered elements’ and they are again in countries that aren’t very friendly to the United States … but if (fracking is) regulated and we do it responsibly I think it helps in the long run,” he said.

The Marcellus Shale is said to hold ‘an ocean’ of natural gas. For landowners with gas leases, the best policy appears to be, stay informed and be prepared. Both the anti-fracking groups at the meeting in Springville and Lash said that landowners have the right to ask questions and should do baseline testing, just in case.

Comments on this article may be sent to ngugino@observertoday.com