BuzzFlash Takes Another Look at Hydraulic Fracturing, and This Time the Country's Watching, Too

GREEN IS GOOD
by Margaret Smith

Home of Benjamin Franklin, Betsy Ross, Independence Hall, and the Constitution Center, Pennsylvania's got something new to boast about when it comes to patriotism: a major stake in America's booming gas drilling industry. With at least 4,000 oil and gas wells drilled here in the last year, the state is becoming a forerunner in our nation's search for natural gas.

With that title comes a new problem that many were not prepared to confront as gas drilling expands nationwide, however. And it happens to weigh 9 million gallons a day.

According to industry estimates used by Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), that's how much wastewater oil and gas wells disgorge in Pennsylvania each day, and by 2011 that figure is expected to rise to at least 19 million gallons. Much of this wastewater is a byproduct of what is becoming a familiar culprit: hydraulic fracturing.

Pennsylvania's situation is just one of the many key statistics and figures released within the past couple of weeks that has shed light on the dangers of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Today fracking has become a key issue in the nation's environmental debate, and many are now calling for a change.

For those who don't know, fracking is a common drilling process used by natural gas and oil companies. A chemical mixture of mostly water and sand (at least a million gallons of water per well), is pumped deep into the earth to break rock and release natural gas.

It may result in a good resource for natural fuel and energy, but fracking comes with a high cost. Once the water used in the drilling process is sucked back up from the ground, it can contain harmful natural toxins like cadmium and benzene, and some of these same chemicals have been found contaminating streams, springs and wells that provide drinking water for many rural towns.

Over the past couple of months progressive journalism news outlets (including us here at BuzzFlash) and environmental activists have been reporting on the dangers of fracking, and bills were even introduced in both the House and the Senate earlier this summer that asked companies who specialize in hydraulic fracturing to finally release a complete list of all the chemicals used in the drilling process.

Even some major gas companies seem to have started that discussion and are looking to find a solution to fracking. At an energy conference in Connecticut a little more than a week ago, both Aubry McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy, and John Pinkerton, CEO of Range Resources, called for a complete disclosure from hydraulic fracturing companies on the chemicals they use in the drilling process, the contents of which are protected under the Safe Drinking Water Act of 2005. Most gas companies hire specialized outside sources to complete this process, but since hydraulic fracturing is not covered under the law, the gas companies don't even know what goes into it.

"We're under confidentiality contracts with the service companies," Pinkerton said, according to Reuters. "I've basically told them that this is not acceptable. It's a little silly, to be honest."

"We as an industry need to demystify [hydraulic fracturing]," McClendon said at the conference according to Reuters. "We need to disclose the chemicals we are using and search for alternatives to the chemicals we are using."

But it took spills in Pennsylvania and West Virginia as well as proposed regulations in New York, Colorado and a number of other states to finally bring the issue to the forefront of the national debate and within common environmental discourse.

Like the fracking spill in West Virginia's Doddridge County late this August. The Charleston Gazette reports that West Virginia's DEP "still can't say exactly what transpired".

Or like in Susquehanna County, PA, where three surface spills occurred at Cabot Oil and Gas Corp.'s drilling site in the middle of September. The result was 8,500 gallons of potentially harmful natural gas being released, most of it entering a nearby stream and wetland. Pennsylvania also suspended all of Cabot's work in the area until the company writes a new pollution-prevention and contingency plan and conducts a study on their fracturing equipment and practices.

Or like in northwest Louisiana this past April, where In These Times reports that 17 cattle died within an hour after drinking "frac" water. The magazine writes, "The Chesapeake Energy Company admitted its pipes had leaked 'salt water' into the field, but did not acknowledge that its lethal 'trade secret' chemicals were dissolved in the water. In a tacit admission of guilt, the company compensated the farmer for his losses."

Our country has started to realize we need more of a level of independence from foreign oil, and hydraulic fracturing may be one of the solutions. In our search for new energy resources, natural gas and hydraulic fracturing was a solution that many had never even thought of before. At what cost, however, do we fight for our energy independence? And should it really weigh 9 million gallons?