Fracking Guzzles Water and Hurts People and Other Living Things

It was good to see that the El Paso Times finally caught on to the story about fracking next to El Paso. It is also good to see that they are reading this blog and published its URL.  The article did bang the booming business drum as elpasonaturally previously predicted it would. The Times previously printed this editorial cartoon:

Opposing big oil makes us conservationists and environmentalists "nutjobs" and "extremists". I suggest that the real nutjobs are those who think petrol jobs outweigh the damage to the public health, safety and welfare and the damage to the environment (which further erodes the public health, safety and welfare.) Create jobs, yes. But create jobs that don't wreak havoc with our lives, water and environment.

So, on the same day that I read the Times piece, I was emailed (thanks, Marshall) this story from Reader Supported News:


Fracking Wells Guzzle Water in Drought-Stricken Regions
By Anastasia Pantsios, EcoWatch
26 November 14


The fracking industry likes to minimize the sector’s bottomless thirst for often-scarce water resources, saying it takes about 2-4 million gallons of water to frack the average well, an amount the American Petroleum Institute describes as “the equivalent of three to six Olympic swimming pools.” That’s close to the figure cited by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as well.

But a new report released by Environmental Working Group (EWG) located 261 “monster” wells that consumed between 10 and 25 million gallons of water to drill each well. Among the conclusions EWG teased out of data reported by the industry itself and posted at fracfocus.org is that between April 2010 and December 2013, these 261 wells consumed 3.3 billions of water between them, a average of 12.7 million gallons each. And 14 of the wells topped 20 million gallons each.

“It’s far more relevant to compare those figures to basic human needs for water, rather than to swimming pools or golf courses,” said EWG’s report. “The 3.3 billion gallons consumed by the monster wells was almost twice as much water as is needed each year by the people of Atascosa County, Texas, in the heart of the Eagle Ford shale formation, one of the most intensively drilled gas and oil fields in the country.”

And proving that everything really is bigger in Texas, that’s where most of these monster wells were located, hosting 149 of them. Between them they consumed 1.8 billion gallons of water. The largest was located in Harrison County on the east Texas border, where in March 2013, Sabine Oil & Gas LLC drilled a well using more than 24.8 million gallons of water. Irion County in west central Texas had the most monster wells with 19 averaging water use of 12.9 each. And Texas also had what EWG described as the “dubious distinction” of using more fresh water in fracking, consuming 21 million gallons in 2011 alone.

Pennsylvania had the second largest number of these monster wells with 39 located in that fracking-boom state atop the Marcellus shale formation. It was followed by Colorado (30, including 8 of the 15 biggest water consumers), Oklahoma (24), North Dakota (11), Louisiana and Mississippi (3 each) and Michigan (2).

EWG also found that 2/3rds of the monster wells were in areas suffering from extreme drought, including 137 of the ones in Texas.

“Like almost all of the Lone Star State, Atascosa County, south of San Antonio, is in a severe and prolonged drought,” said EWG. “Last year, the state water agency cited oil and gas exploration and production as a factor in the dramatic drop of groundwater levels in the aquifer underlying the Eagle Ford formation.”

That’s a huge problem for a state with a growing population and a big agriculture industry, including a large, water-intensive cattle-raising sector, resulting in conflicts over water use likely to intensify in the future.

The EWG report cautions that their estimates of fracking water use may be low.


“There is no way of knowing just how much water is being used for fracking, however, because while the controversial well stimulation technique is known to be used in 36 states, only 15 require reporting to FracFocus, and none of the numbers that do get reported are vetted by any kind of regulatory agency or independent authority,” it said. “Even the data that does get reported is incomplete. EWG says that for 38 of the 261 monster wells, FracFocus did not even identify such basic information as whether the wells were drilled for oil or natural gas, or what kind of water they used.”


By the way, read Doing the Math by elpasonaturally if you want to get a good picture of just how much water Torchlight Energy Resources will consume for fracking up the Diablo Plateau.

Who are the nutjobs?

Texas Unlikely to Act Soon Due to TCEQ Director and Solicitor General

Click to enlarge. Visit America's leaking natural gas system needs a fix, study finds.

Check out the story below from the Texas Tribune. Key paragraph:

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality does not officially recognize greenhouse gas as a danger to the environment, and the state refused for years to issue federally required greenhouse gas permits to companies that needed them. Last month, the state’s solicitor general, Jonathan Mitchell, argued in front of the U.S. Supreme Court that the permits are illegal. And the TCEQ's director, Bryan Shaw, has repeatedly questioned whether climate change is caused by humans. 

[Emphases mine]

Sad. Sad. These same guys probably also believe that Adam walked with TRex. "Here, Rex, Rex. Good dino. Fetch the bone. Atta boy. Oh God! My rib cage aches so. What the..."

The subtitle should have been: "But Texas Is Unlikely to Act Soon".

Texas Could Lead on Methane Reduction, Report Says

• by Jim Malewitz and Neena Satija, The Texas Tribune
• March 6, 2014

Oil and gas companies could play a major role in slashing emissions of methane, and Texas, the nation’s top energy producer, could help lead the way, environmental advocates say.

The industry could curb projected emissions by as much as 40 percent in the U.S. by 2018 through actions that could save it money in the long run, according to a report released this week by the Environmental Defense Fund. 
But it is unlikely that Texas environmental regulators will embrace the message. And industry representatives disagree about the urgency of curbing methane emissions at a time when cows — through their flatulence — are actually a larger emitter.

Power plants that burn natural gas spew far less carbon dioxide than traditional coal-fired plants, helping to reduce impacts on the climate. But extracting oil and gas through hydraulic fracturing releases methane, a greenhouse gas that is more potent than carbon dioxide.

The new report suggested several ways for drillers to curb those releases, such as by finding and repairing pipeline leaks, replacing compressor equipment and capturing the gas before it escapes. Those changes would cost the industry some $2.2 billion up front but would yield savings in the long run as companies capture and reuse the stray methane, the study said.
“There are balanced, real solutions available that can make natural gas a less risky fuel source,” said Mark Brownstein, an energy expert at the Environmental Defense Fund.

Brownstein said that drillers could achieve some of the goals through voluntary actions that some companies have already taken, but that state regulations would also be important.

His group and others have hailed rules recently implemented in Colorado, another hotbed of drilling. That state now strictly regulates greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas extraction, and if Texas were to follow suit, the impact on emissions would be much larger.

“What happens in Texas can have a great deal of influence in what can happen in the states and federally,” Brownstein said.

But Texas is unlikely to act soon.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality does not officially recognize greenhouse gas as a danger to the environment, and the state refused for years to issue federally required greenhouse gas permits to companies that needed them. Last month, the state’s solicitor general, Jonathan Mitchell, argued in front of the U.S. Supreme Court that the permits are illegal. And the TCEQ's director, Bryan Shaw, has repeatedly questioned whether climate change is caused by humans. 

Meanwhile, opinions within Texas' oil and gas industry differ.
Bill Mintz, a spokesman for Apache Corporation, a Houston-based oil and gas producer, called the EDF report “an important contribution to the discussion of cost effective opportunities to reduce methane emissions in the oil and gas industry.”

Apache, he said, has already implemented some of the practices mentioned in the report, but “we know there is a lot more work to do, and we encourage all of our industry colleagues engage in the race to minimize methane emissions in the oil and gas business.”

Deb Hastings, executive vice president of the Texas Oil and Gas Association, said she knew of several drilling companies that are working to reduce methane emissions largely through capture and recovery techniques.
She said her group was still reviewing the new study, but worried that researchers underestimated the cost of regulations and overestimated the benefits.

“We aren’t one of the biggest emitters of methane, but we try to reduce it,” she said. “We do believe that our emissions are dropping.”

Nationally, industry members have widely cited newly released data from the Environmental Protection Agency suggesting that the U.S. is emitting less greenhouse gases overall, and that emissions can be attributed not to oil and gas drilling but to the cattle industry — in other words, cow farts. (For years, experts have worked with cattle farmers to reduce animal emissions through grazing techniques and better nutrition.)

Estimates on exactly how much methane is emitted during fracking vary widely. Last fall, a high-profile study from the University of Texas at Austin measured emissions directly from oil and gas producing wells across the country. The results suggested that environmental rules have already helped to reduce emissions, and that without proper regulation, fracking might cancel out the benefit of natural gas to the health of the climate. But Texas researchers cautioned that the study focused only on the drilling process itself and do not measure pipeline leaks, another source of emissions.
Other scientists have come to very different conclusions, however, when studying the amount of methane in the atmosphere, rather than measuring emissions on the ground.

A peer-reviewed study published late last year by scientists from Harvard University and elsewhere suggests that the federal government has been vastly underestimating methane emissions in the U.S., especially those coming from the south-central portion of the country, where fossil fuel extraction is most prevalent. 

The scientists said methane emissions from oil and gas drilling could be underestimated by as much as five times.


Disclosure: At the time of publication, Apache Corporation and the University of Texas at Austin were corporate sponsors of The Texas Tribune. (You can also review the full list of Tribune donors and sponsors below $1,000.)

Texas Tribune donors or members may be quoted or mentioned in our stories, or may be the subject of them. For a complete list of contributors, click here.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at http://www.texastribune.org/2014/03/06/texas-could-lead-methane-reduction-group-says/.


For further reading:
New Study Finds U.S. Has Greatly Underestimated Methane Emissions

Jobe in Violation of Section 404 of the Clean Water Act

Jobe is in violation of section 404 of the Clean Water Act in his attempt to destroy Arroyo 41A, the Mountain to River Trail. Here is a report that I received yesterday:

The EPA Region 6 Wetlands Coordinator in Dallas has been out to Arroyo 41A (planned Mountain to River Trail). Jobe violated section 404 of the Clean Water Act by not having a permit to grade the arroyo. EPA won't fine Jobe since this is his first violation. However, the Army Corps of Engineers is requiring Jobe to mitigate the damage and he will likely have to obtain a 404 permit to quarry the arroyo. The city, county and public may be able to comment on the sufficiency of the mitigation and also comment on the permit process.

According to a local Corps official, if Jobe wants to remove fill from the arroyos he can without a permit, as long as he doesn't store fill in the arroyo. Also, according to the same official, commenting on mitigation may not be an option specifically allowed by statute (although statute does not prohibit such either).

The above should also pertain to the developer of Desert Springs who intends to fill in much of 41A. The goal would be to work with the Corps so the permit mandates the least environmentally destructive alternative be selected.

Go here to be notified by email about any public notices through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.