On Shaky Ground? Fracking Lawsuits, Earthquakes and Bad Water (oh my)

March 7th, 2011. By AbiK

Maybe oil (ok, natural gas) and water (and the earth) don’t mix after all…

So there’s a post over at the Forbes blog today by Dr. Michael Economides defending hydraulic fracking. There’s also a post over at The Motley Fool that shares hydraulic fracturing’s new “problem”: earthquakes. (Actually it isn’t “new”—the notion of fracking contributing to earthquakes has been just below the mainstream media’s lens for a while now).

I had just watched (a bit overdue) the documentary “Flow” last night (clip above), about the threats to our global water supply—worth watching for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet—but it’s actually a good place to begin to understand at a quick glance the reasoning behind the fracking-earthquake connection. Keep in mind, of course, with the creation of water wells and the removal of groundwater, the impact on earth’s subsurface is akin to creating a void—like pulling the rug out from under your feet; with hydraulic fracturing, the issue is more about the injection of pressurized water into the earth and the subsequent collection and disposal of that water into wastewater wells. Note also, we’re not talking straight and pure H20 here—the fracking wastewater also contains any of an assortment of chemicals possibly including methane gas, benzene, tuolene, ethylbenzene and xylenes, hexavalent chromium and hydrochloric acid.

So without being an engineer or scientist, this fracking-earthquake connection sort of makes sense—as you keep undermining or comprising the integrity of the earth’s subsurface, maybe Mother Nature starts to reach her breaking point. Consider—particularly if you’ve seen “Flow—the development of sinkholes due to overwithdrawal of groundwater or the creation of new water wells. Is it too far of a leap to then consider what else might occur or be affected by the continual injection of high-pressure water and chemicals involved with fracking?

A study that was much publicized back in March, 2010, that was done by researchers from Southern Methodist University and the University of Texas at Austin aimed to study the potential correlation between recent seismic movements in Texas and hydraulic fracking. Now, what’s interesting is that while the initial drilling and injection of highly pressurized fluid did not show a correlation to earthquakes, the tail end of the fracking process did—ie, the re-injection of wastewater. This is from the press release that was issued by SMU at the time:

“The earthquakes do not appear to be directly connected to the drilling, hydraulic fracturing or gas production in the Barnett Shale, the study concludes. However, re-injection of waste fluids into a zone below the Barnett Shale at the nearby saltwater disposal well began in September 2008, seven weeks before the first DFW earthquakes occurred and none were recorded in the area after the injection well stopped operating in August 2009.”

Add these concerns to another that has come out of the intertwining of natural gas and water—possible drinking water contamination due to fracking—which has hit the mainstream media and was the impetus for a recent fracking lawsuit—and is it any wonder folks are demanding that the oil companies provide full and transparent disclosure to the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing along with proof in the form of ongoing studies that ensure the process is safe.

Speaking of oil companies, I read the post by Michael Economides over at Forbes.com—and as a layperson in the oil industry, I can’t say whether his points are valid and true or not. What I can say though, is that when you’re the Chairman of a company that “specializes in the design, financing, construction and operation of facilities and vessels for the transport of commercial quantities of natural gas using compressed natural gas (CNG) technologies”—the company being XGas, then you owe it to your readers to fully disclose that rather than hiding behind a veil of independence by only showing your professorship at the University of Houston.

Compare that with the folks over at The Motley Fool where they disclose the fact that “The Fool owns shares of ExxonMobil”. Kudos to The Fool.

Time will tell whether hydraulic fracturing is indeed a safe method for extracting natural gas from regions like the Marcellus Shale. But in the absence of studies that effectively establish such safety, reports of farm animals taking ill or dying and reports of studies that indicate contaminated water near fracking operations beg the question: would you want your water supply—the reservoir that feeds your tap, the one your kids drink out of—to be lying in close range of hydraulic fracturing? Probably not.

Tags: earthquakes, Flow, fracking, fracking contamination, Fracking lawsuit, hydraulic fracking, hydraulic fracturing, hydraulic-fracturing-water-contamination-epa-fracking-hydrofracking, Michael Economides

This was posted on Monday, March 7th, 2011 at 4:37 pm and is filed under Emerging Issues, Environment . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.