Horse out of the barn on gas drilling
http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101205/NEWS04/12050305
December 05, 2010
Horse out of the barn on gas drilling
The federal Interior Department is considering whether natural gas drillers should have to disclose the chemicals they use in hydraulic fracturing. This after-the-fact approach to environmental regulation says a lot about how Americans willingly accept unknown risks for the sake of immediate, relatively short-term energy gratification.
“Fracking” involves injecting millions of gallons of water containing chemicals and sand, deep underground. The pressure of the liquid creates cracks through which natural gas can flow and be extracted. The process is highly controversial because of the possibility of spills and of contaminating groundwater. Already instances of contaminated wells have cropped up in well-drilling areas of Pennsylvania, and many spills have occurred. This represents a major public health and safety concern. After all, the majority of Pocono-area residents rely on wells for their drinking water, and millions of Pennsylvanians and New Yorkers depend on clean drinking water from the Delaware River.
Material safety data sheets that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection obtained from drilling companies list nearly 80 chemicals they use in the fracking process, among them ethylbenzene, methanol, aqueous ammonia and sulfuric acid. These pose a threat to everything from the tiny organisms that live under rocks in streams to birds, fish, animals and humans.
Industry officials argue that disclosing exactly what they use in the fracking process would reveal valuable proprietary information. But as long as regulators allow this drilling method, the public should know the formula for what is flowing into the ground under their property and their neighbors’ property. And certainly workers should know what they may be exposed to. An Oil and Gas Accountability Project study reported that Colorado had about 1,500 reported spills of various types, including fracturing fluids, in five years, while New Mexico had close to 800.
Still, shouldn’t regulators be focusing more on how drillers are extracting gas, rather than on what’s in the fracking fluid? Requiring super-strong well casings would reduce the likelihood of blowouts that could pollute the shallow aquifers we tap for our drinking water. Requiring all drillers to recycle the little fracking fluid they recover would help, too. Instead, regulators say they want to know what’s in the fluid, presumably so that after the fact they can treat the used water, treat humans who’ve been exposed to it, or enable well owners to test for specific contaminants. That’s all about response, not prevention.
In recent years Pennsylvania has become a mecca for gas drilling companies eager to exploit the gas-rich Marcellus shale deposit. The substances flowing underground, and sometimes escaping above ground and into our streams, could produce a dangerous legacy for our future. The real fact is that we are risking our common environment and natural landscape and putting our clean water in jeopardy for the sake of a few decades of natural gas.