BP Experience Should Have us Catching a Fracking Clue

June 21st, 2010. By AbiK

We’ve posted before about fracking—the hotly debated method of extracting natural gas from the ground, aka “hydraulic fracturing”. It’s a topic that shows up almost daily in newspapers of towns situated in the area of the Marcellus Shale—places in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York—where new sources of natural gas have been discovered. And it’s being debated because some folks aren’t completely convinced that there is no risk of contamination of underground drinking water sources.

So tuck that thought away for a moment and let’s just recap what’s dominated the news for close to two months now. That would be the BP Oil Spill.And that’s led to some reminiscing about the Exxon Valdez spill. And gee, everyone thought all that was safe, right? Who could’ve predicted any of this? Oh—of course, in hindsight you’ve got folks who say there were “issues” with the Deepwater Horizon and something was “bound to happen”—but clearly, those that voiced such concerns even three or six months ago were poo-pooed.

Fine, we’re a nation built on optimism. Capitalism itself could never thrive with a glass-is-half-empty world view. But, be that as it may, it’s always prudent to plan for the “what ifs”—what if, perchance, the proverbial glass gets knocked over by a toddler and (oh no!) cracks? Surely it behooves one to have a little contingency plan in effect so further malady does not occur (slips and falls! cut fingers! nothing to drink!).

Not so with Big Oil.

So now various attempts have been made on the fly to stop the spewing oil. And, a number of you have been sending in your ideas on how to fix the mess of the BP oil spill. Why? Because clearly no one laid out any plans for this particular “what if?”.

Back to fracking.

An interesting article appeared today in The Scranton Times Tribune.  It’s by Laura Legere. And she raises some interesting points (btw, the Times Tribuneis one of those news outlets that’s been providing ongoing coverage of the fracking situation in the Marcellus Shale region).

It seems that Pennsylvania does not “keep a public database detailing spills or contamination incidents at oil and gas wells.”

Huh?

Here’s another little gem from the article:

“In order to measure the frequency of well site spills, The Times-Tribune submitted a Right-to-Know request for the environmental agency’s well inspection reports and violation notices that detail spills, leaks and seeps. But inconsistent responses and record keeping from the four regional offices that oversee drilling made finding an exact count of spills impossible.”

Remember that little business 101 saying—the one that goes “You can’t manage what you don’t measure”? You also can’t control it, fix it, improve it or plan for it.

But perhaps Pennsylvania’s taking a more spiritual tack: praying about it.

Tags: BP Oil Spill, fracking, hydraulic fracturing, hydraulic-fracturing-water-contamination-epa-fracking-hydrofracking

This was posted on Monday, June 21st, 2010 at 2:22 pm and is filed under Emerging Issues, Environment . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.