Water pollution and fracking

Fracking is pollution.

Fracking is like diet soda.

It says it benefits us, but then it causes pollution or gives us cancer.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/09/15/4153640/duke-scientists-fracking-didnt.html

I don't know enough on fracking. I read about it at some length a few years ago and was against some practices but not what I understood then of others, but I'm still chary and essentially sans data.

I'll just follow along here.

Osso, fracking is against nature, its geological structure's laws and cyclical physics.

your English is atrocious and youre full of **** , but the basis of the complaint is true. The drillers have been riding rough shod over state governments and the governors have been pretty much in the drillers pockets.
The issue is proper casing and sealing. The drillers are making believe this is 1940 when we couldn't analyze tainted water in the ppb levels.
One of the concerns is in the "Wet gas" fields where benzene and Toluene are measurable.

They can do this drilling and fracturing safely , its just that many of the drillers don't really give a **** and they feel that, ever since Cheney's pass on drilling as part of "National Security", they can get away with anything.

I'm quite sure when topics aren't based on human stupidity, but the beauty of this Universe, my colloquially inventive mind would manage to surprise you.

I'm surprised there aren't a lot more reported problems in Texas. Last month when I was driving through western Texas, there were many acres of wells actively pumping amongst the wind farms. You could tell what was being pumped by the stench of fumes in the area. Some so strong, it made me wonder if underground tanks and pipelines were overflowing and being neglected. Some of the smells of natural gas leaks made me think it wouldn't take much of a lightning strike or other spark in the area to set off a massive explosion.

hmmmm, there shouldn't be any smell from nat gas. I wonder if they hadn't been adding the mercaptan right there. Mercaptans are what gives the gas that "Garlic" odor. Maybe roger has some ideas. We don't do this in Pa since it fucks up the woodsy smells and hunters are still pretty powerful as a lobby.

It was particularly strong between Abilene and Lubbock along hwy 84, then it changed to a raw petroleum smell between Lubbock and the border.

It may have been that additive, but it seemed to be particularly strong in the fields where there was obvious neglect of the condition of the pumps. Some looked as if they were going to disintegrate into a pile of rust any minute. What distinguished what I thought was gas rather than oil was an acrid smell that reminded me of household gas but also reminded me of the smells of the stuff used for mosquito abatement.

I kept looking around the ground near the pumps to see if there were exposed pools of petro products. Never saw anything and that had me wondering if it was the underground storage and pipe lines that were leaking.

maybe they dope the gas right at the well in Texas fields. I only worked there for Titanium deposits and U.
My guys did some work out in Odessa and that plce smelled like crap , but it ws all chemicals and spills.

In Pa we don't add smells at the wellhead.

Youse gotta drive without making any sparks

I have to say that I was a big proponent of fracking when I started my "Drilling Quietly Going ON..."
Thread. I admit to too much excitememt about the new technology and how we were gonna really make big dents into the world supply of nat gas. Since Ive been involved in several investigations Ive seen that lots o mistakes have been made nd these are being done by bout 1/3 of the companies who seem to hve a "desperado" attitude.

I am still big fan of the farmerman rule that says
"IF IT WASNT FOR RULES ND REGS NO INDUSTRY WOULD DO THE RIGHT THING"
Here we have yet another example of cowboy mentality nd **** the people. Pennsylvania is already hosed from all the acid mine water dumping into about 25% of our pristine streams. Weve got dead streams and rivers left over from the coal barons of the 1800's and 1900's and now weve got the potential for the same thing.
Pa now has an opportunity to rectify this and to get rid of a governor whose deeply in the pockets of the gas drillers.

Our present governor made a dumass statement that, if we charge a fee to the drillers to serve as Environmental Contingency and to aid the school funds, this would "drive the drillers away"

Who the hell is he kidding?
That's been the attitude with his regime, its been turn his back on industrial pollution and screw the citizens

I know fracking can be done safely but as you pointed out governors seem to be more concerned about extracting gas and oil [big money] than protecting the drinking water that most citizens take for granted. But what pissed me off about this article was the fact that the headline said fracking wasent the problem but leaking gas wells. Where does the gas and oil come from if it isent fracking. More bull **** news from news media that is supposed to inform us and does if you read 8 or 9 paragraphs into a news story. I guess in a way its the readers fault that they arnt as informed as they could be.

I have to admit before I did some research into what fracking is and how it impacts the environment I was for fracking. Now that I know more about the process I am not pro-fracking anymore. My research was on the impact fracking has on water supplies, both above and below ground. Fracking uses between 2 and 8 million gallons of water for each well and this water is mixed with chemicals, some of which are known to be toxic (Konkel, 2016). Most of the fracking fluid returns to the surface and has to be dealt with. The fracking process also allows produced water to come to the surface, and this fluid also has to be dealt with (Konkel, 2016). Produced water contains numerous toxic substances, some of which are even radioactive (Konkel, 2016). Methane leaks are another issue with fracking. Energy companies want the public to believe natural gas is a cleaner alternative to coal; however, what they do not tell the public is methane leaks are a major concern during fracking operations and methane gas contributes more too global warming than carbon dioxide (Kiger, 2014). Technology has advanced and there are better ways to acquire oil and natural gas. One technology uses an eighth of the water traditional fracking operations use by using a gel substance made from propane (Kiger, 2014). Fracking may lead to the use of cleaner forms of fuel, but the research suggests fracking is doing more harm than good to the environment. Fracking has to be made safer for the environment or future generations will suffer the consequences.

Kiger, P. (2014, March 21). Green fracking? 5 Technologies for cleaner shale energy. National Geographic [Online]. Retrieved from https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2014/03/140319-5-technologies-for-greener-fracking/

Konkel, L. (2016). Salting the earth: The environmental impact of oil and gas wastewater spills. Environmental Health Perspectives (Online), 124(12)

there will always be a debate re the environmental risks from fracking. I too had been a loud supporter of fracking in the beginning, but recently Ive been involved in some of the studies funded by the gas industry. Ive found events of frack related contamination of upper aquifers(Remember that fracking usually ovccurs several thousand meters below the base of most aquifers and it was believed that it could best be better flow-controlled sealed off by uses of polymer sealants and guar gum and sand proppants in the actual frack zones. In some cases the damn stuff goes around the packed off horizons in the gas play and natural joints in the sandstones can direct contaminants upward.
But the game has changed a bit as we now know this and yet another energy discovery has recently been made.

NOW weve an opportunity to collect and utilize frack fluids and subaquifer brines. It seems that most sub brines contain marketable concentrations of LITHIUM. So, collection and sweeping of post-frack fluids and brines can become a resource and nothing as good as making more money from the waste streams will help to remediate and protect the surrounding water(mostly because waste water treatment works best in higher concentrations of the contaminants)

I think there will be an article in NYT "Science Tuesdays" in the coming weeks.

This reminds me of the old days in the Mesabi. Taconite crushing created a lot oof asbestos and this became an environmental problem. The iron mining companies approached the EPA for permission to min even lower concentrations of iron ore. The ability to mine 1% ores led to the control and cleanup of asbestos because it was locked up in the iron silicates and was now part of the mineable ore. The making or the pellet marbles tied up much more asbestos and the problem gradually cleaned itself up by using the realities of iron-silicate chemistry

Fracking may cause earthquakes due to the high pressure used to extract oil and gas from rock and the storage of excess wastewater on site.