Energy In Depth digs deep into the substrata of U.S. code, separates fact from fiction in ProPublica’s latest dispatch
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As Dec. 31 comment deadline approaches, NY’ers decide whether to leverage homegrown energy into jobs, revenue, security
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Energy In Depth digs deep into the substrata of U.S. code, separates fact from fiction in ProPublica’s latest dispatch
Here’s a question for you: What is a “well”? Is it a long, generally thin structural conduit used to secure physical access to sub-surface reserves of oil, gas, water and geothermal? Sure, it’s that. But for the purposes of regulation, it’s also considered any “dug hole” that’s “deeper than it is wide” – kind of like a hole you’d dig to stick a fence-post on your property, or one you’d need to install before setting up a basketball hoop in your driveway.
Of course, in digging that “well,” you better be careful how it’s classified. Under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, the mere “subsurface emplacement of fluids” – a fancy phrase for “sticking stuff underground” – requires a permit from either the state Underground Injection Control office or the EPA, depending on the class of well involved.
But exactly into what class would a foundation hole for a basketball rim fall? Is it a Class I hazardous waste disposal well? Is it a Class II wastewater disposal well? Maybe a Class III disposal well for the solution mining of potash and sulfur?
Of course it isn’t. In reality, the reason you don’t need a federal permit to dig a 2-foot hole isn’t because it’s not considered a “well” (it is) — and it isn’t because you aren’t “emplacing” fluids within it (you are). It’s because the Safe Drinking Water Act has been interpreted for 35 years as a law to safeguard “public drinking water” from the permanent “disposal” of everything from hazardous wastes to mining salts. And as anyone who knows anything about energy exploration can tell you – that doesn’t describe either the purpose of hydraulic fracturing, or the effect. It’s a technique for liberating energy, after all, not disposing of waste.
Enter ProPublica’s Abrahm Lustgarten; for the uninitiated, someone “as expert on the topic [of fracturing] as anyone in America,” according to his editor. Earlier this week, Lustgarten published a piece in which he advances the following basic argument: Forget whether the water involved in the fracturing process is dangerous, and set aside whether its productive use in stimulating underground gas constitutes “permanent disposal.” It’s all about the volume. And if operators leave even a drop of fluid underground, shouldn’t the EPA regulate it as underground injection?
At least, that’s how we’d paraphrase it. Here’s how he actually lays it out in the piece:
For more than a decade the energy industry has steadfastly argued …that the federal law protecting drinking water should not be applied to hydraulic fracturing … Now an important part of that argument — that most of the millions of gallons of toxic chemicals that drillers inject underground are removed for safe disposal, and are not permanently discarded inside the earth — does not apply to drilling in many of the nation’s booming new gas fields.
Now, to accept this point as legitimate, first you’d need to accept the idea that industry’s entire argument on hydraulic fracturing – namely, that states are best-equipped to regulate the technology – is rendered null and void in light of the supposedly earth-shattering revelation that some amount of water is left confined underground.
But haven’t we known about this reality for some time now – especially as it relates to the Marcellus? Is it possible that the Wilkes-Barre (Pa.) Times-Leader scooped ProPublica on this phenomenon in a story published more than 10 months ago?
When the rock is fractured, the liquid, known as fracing fluid, is pumped out, but only about half comes back, according to Thomas Beauduy, the SRBC’s deputy director. … DEP believes the water is segregated far enough away from groundwater to not be an issue.
The reality of the situation is this: Everyone knows that some volume of water will naturally remain confined underground; the geo-physical realities involved in fracturing a well allow for no other outcome.
But does that mean it’s dangerous? Absolutely not. Remember, we’re talking about a volume of liquid trapped nearly two miles beneath the surface – with thousands of tons of rock and several confining strata isolating it from potable drinking water above. And how do we know those confining strata will do their job? Because they’ve been doing their job for a million years now – not exclusively in preventing frac water from migrating to the surface, but in preventing the salty water that’s already down there naturally from penetrating our aquifers and ruining our drinking water.
Of course, Congress knows all this, and if it ever intended the Safe Drinking Water Act to extend beyond its original scope and cover the fracturing of energy wells, it certainly had plenty of chances to make that view known. Passed in 1974, SDWA has been amended a whopping eight separate times over the past 35 years (’74, ’77, ’79, ‘80, ‘86, ‘88, ’96, ‘05), but at no time during that extended run was the concept of regulating fracturing under the Act a significant component of the debate. And that’s true even though at the time of the bill’s passage in ‘74, fracturing had already been in commercial use for 25 years.
What’s changed in 35 years? Not a whole lot on the technological side, with the notable exception of exciting advancements in horizontal drilling techniques that allow producers today to access 10 times the energy by drilling 1/10 the number of wells.
That should be universally hailed as a good thing, right? Unfortunately, for some groups, any technology that allows for greater access to fossil fuels – albeit the cleanest and most secure ones on earth – is rendered an object of fierce opposition. The tragedy of it all? Shale gas exploration in America not only has the potential to deliver hundreds of thousands of new jobs (when we need them most) and billions in annual revenue (when we need it most) – but it can help break our country’s dependence on foreign energy, and reduce the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere all at the same time.
Name us another energy source that can do all that. Now you understand what’s at stake.
Additional resources available at Energy In Depth:
- Send a Letter to DEC: Through the Energy In Depth portal, or (and?) via our friends from IOGA NY.
- Study: Potential Economic and Fiscal Impacts from Natural Gas Production in Broome County, NY
- Issue Alert: Gangs of New York
- Issue Alert: Sign of the Times
- Fact Sheet: HF Opponents Say the Darndest Things
- GWPC Study: State Oil and Natural Gas Regulations Designed to Protect Water Resources
- Graphic: What’s In Frac Fluids?
- EPA Study: Study to Evaluate the Impacts to USDWs by Hydraulic Fracturing of Coalbed Methane Reservoirs
- Browner Memo: Letter of Support for Hydraulic Fracturing from Carol Browner, Fmr. EPA Administrator
Environmental State Oil and Natural Gas Regulations Designed to Protect Water Resources
Technological Advancements Continue to Ensure Environmental Safety, Spur Job Creation
Technological breakthroughs in the energy production process continue to advance daily. These advancements – which are responsible for delivering affordable, clean-burning energy to American families, small businesses and manufacturers – help ensure that energy exploration is properly balanced with, and even used to help enhance, the imperative of keeping our air, land and water safe. At the same time, thanks in large part to these new developments, good-paying jobs are being created in the natural gas production industry from shale plays in Pennsylvania all way down to Arkansas, as well as a host of other regions throughout the country.
In a weekend story entitled “Proposed Wysox recycling plant for gas industry would not discharge into sewer system”, the Towanda (PA) Daily Review reports this:
Wysox Township is the preferred location for a plant that Eureka Resources LLC would construct to recycle waste water from hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus Shale, one of the owners of Eureka Resources said this week.
The plant, which would be located at the site of the Agway store on Sullivan Street in Wysox Township, would remove the salt, chemicals and other components from the waste water, said Daniel Ertel, one of the owners of Eureka Resources LLC.
All of the treated water would then be returned to gas well sites where it would be re-used in gas drilling operations, including hydraulic fracturing, he said.
The plant would not discharge any water or waste products into streams, rivers or sewer systems, he said.
“It will be a 100 percent recycling facility,” he said.
And yesterday, the Associated Press reports this under the headline “Ark. city lands $15 million manufacturing plant”:
A manufacturer specializing in technology to help increase oil and gas production plans to build a $15 million plant in Van Buren, employing about 50 workers by the summer.
Oxane Materials Inc. says it plans to expand the plant through 2014, with an expected total investment of $32 million and additional employment of up to 300 workers.
While Pennsylvania, Texas, Wyoming, North Dakota, Louisiana and Arkansas – just to name a few – continue to bolster job and revenue growth through energy production, some states are sitting on their hands. Under New York lies a considerable portion of the Marcellus shale. However, some state policymakers remain committed to adding layers of bureaucratic red tape around the shale gas production process in the state. Some even want an outright ban on this job-creating production.
Thankfully though, there is still time for New Yorkers to send their state leaders the message that it is now time to move forward with responsible, heavily-regulated, 21st century shale production in the Empire State. And as illustrated above, today’s energy production technologies safeguard and protect the environment and water resources. Struggling families and the thousands out of work residents need this economic activity now more than ever.
Gas exploration could bolster New York’s economy
By Brad Gill
December 21, 2009, 9:48 AM
- “The decision to leverage our state’s homegrown energy resources into jobs, revenue and opportunity during this time of economic uncertainty will be made by the citizens”
Op-ed contributor Larry Beahan isn’t the first anti-energy activist to employ dark imagery and breathless hyperbole to scare the public into thinking the development of clean-burning natural gas is dangerous; but rarely has a submission been as grossly inaccurate as the one attributed to him on this page last month.
It’s important to understand first that natural gas exploration is not a phenomenon new to our state. The first commercial gas well in the world was developed just 50 miles south of Buffalo nearly 190 years ago, and New York today is home to more than 14,000 producing wells, each of them tightly regulated by the state.
What’s different with the Marcellus Shale? For starters, it’s massive, by some estimates, holding as much as 516 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. And as our friends from Pennsylvania have shown us, it’s an economic game-changer as well.
Barely two years into developing its portion of the Marcellus, Pennsylvania saw those efforts generate 29,000 jobs and $240 million in state and local tax revenue in 2008 alone.
How did our neighbors fare in 2009? According to one study, gas exploration helped Pennsylvania create an additional 48,000 jobs and $3.8 billion in local economic development — still with a month of counting to go. Keep in mind that more than 900,000 people in New York are out of work, with jobs here currently being lost statewide at a clip of 500 a day.
But what of Beahan’s contention that the process for producing this gas is unsafe — a “satanic” ritual involving an “unholy brew” of “unknown chemicals,” as he puts it?
Well, 99.5 percent of that “unholy brew” is water and sand, and the trace additives that remain are posted online by the Department of Environmental Conservation for all to see. One of the most significant of those additives (by percentage) is “guar gum.” You can find that in peanut butter.
Other errors put forth by Beahan seek to intentionally mislead: Diesel fuel, contrary to his assertion, is not used in the exploration process (except in the trucks); the fish kill he references in West Virginia was caused by coal mine discharges, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, not drilling water; and the process of hydraulic fracturing has not forced a single person in Bradford, Pa., to leave his home.
Ultimately, the decision to leverage our state’s homegrown energy resources into jobs, revenue and opportunity during this time of economic uncertainty will be made by the citizens, not Beahan. Readers who’d like to support new exploration can send e-mails to dmnsgeis@gw.dec.state.ny.us. But time is running out.
Brad Gill is executive director of the Independent Oil & Gas Association of New York and a member of the coalition EnergyInDepth.org.
NOTE: Click HERE to view this column on-line and HERE to view Energy In Depth’s NY on-line petition.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Walter Hang’s Statistics
Ithaca activist scores lots of coverage over claim of “270 oil and gas spills in New York” – but what do the data ACTUALLY say?
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Lies, Damned Lies, and Walter Hang’s Statistics
