The Eleanor Project

Range Resources, a major natural gas developer in the Appalachian region, suspects vandals loosened bolts securing pipeline coupling causing hydraulic fracturing wastewater to leak into a  farmers drainage ditch.  A Range spokesman said the pipe had passed a pressure test and physical inspection.  Pennsylvania state environmental regulators are investigating.  

The wastewater subsequently found a path to a tributary of Cross Creek Lake in Washington County.  Salamanders, crayfish and insects were killed in the May 26 spill.

Where was their security?  A fracturing job typically has thirty plus operators, not including company men, water and sand haulers, rolling in all hours of the day or night, a wire-line crew, such as Halliburton, and sundry support personal adding to the number of eyes on site.

Range Resources had a simple choice, step up to plate and accept responsibility. They choose front-line finger pointing at mysterious vandals and a wait-and-see stance instead.

“We have a 60-year track record on our side,” said Chris Tucker, spokesman for Energy in Depth, a Washington, D.C. based industry lobby group, in response to the recent push by legislators to repeal the Energy Policy Act of 2005, (see  ‘Halliburton Loophole’ post)

Tucker went on to say, “Why in 60 years that fracing has been used, why now?  Why is everyone pissed off now?” 

My answer to Tucker is accountability!

Denise Skinner

Democratic Representatives Diana DeGette of Colorado and Maurice Hinchey of New York plan to offer a bill that would repeal a measure in the 2005 energy bill that excluded hydraulic fracturing methods from regulation unde the Safe Drinking Water Act .

Opening the door to Environmental Protection Agency supervision of the practice, energy groups are concerned the law will lead to cumbersome federal standards requiring more permitting, additional testing and higher water quality for fracking fluid.

Denise Skinner

Lawmakers expect to introduce legislation that would reverse hydraulic fracturing practices from federal oversight.

Readers, the most important thing is, it would force Halliburton, Schlumberger Ltd and BJ Services Co USA, to reveal what chemicals they use to produce hydraulic fracturing fluid formulas.

Closing the Halliburton Loophole would not require disclosure of specific proprietary formulas, just a list of constituents injected underground.

Nobody can make Cheerios just by looking at the list on the side of the box!

Denise Skinner

Gas drilling critics welcome  move by U.S. regulator

New restrictions by the Delaware River Basin Commission, an interstate commission representing Pennsylvania,  New York, New Jersey, Delaware and the federal government, requires prior approval for any new projects in the Delaware River basin, a watershed supplying 15 million people.

This action may slow gas exploration and drilling in the Marcellus Shale, but I doubt it.  Chesapeake Energy Corp. holds 1.3 million acres of drilling rights on the Marcellus formation. 

Chesapeake Energy Corporation’s other activities include partnerning with Orange County Choppers(OCC) in Orange County New York, located on the Marcellus Shale natural gas play to create the first Compressed Natural Gas powered chopper.

The ruling is the first of a geopolitical entity stepping up to the plate to protect water withdrawals and wastewater contamination from hydraulic fracturing techniques. 

A representative from the Pennsylvania Oil & Gas Association, said the commission’s action came sooner than expected.  

Denise Skinner

The oil and gas industry is the only industry in America that is allowed to inject known hazardous material, unchecked, directly into or adjacent to drinking water water supplies. In 2000, in response to a 1997 court decision ordering the EPA to regulate hydraulic fracturing under the ‘Safe Drinking Water Act’, the EPA initiated a study to assess the potential for fracturing to contaminate underground drinking water supplies. In 2001, a special task force convened by Vice President Cheney (former CEO of Halliburton), recommended that Congress exempt hydraulic fracturing from the ‘Safe Drinking Water Act’. In 2004 the EPA found that hydraulic fracturing posed “little or no threat” to drinking water, hence the loophole.

The Marcellus Shale, a natural gas formation, which extends through 70% of Pennsylvania, is hinted to hold 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, 50 TCF of which is estimated to be recoverable. We have enough natural gas reserves in the United States to last for more than 100 years. Developing these resources could provide energy security to the U.S. by focusing on natural gas as a transportation fuels. Of the petroleum we import, about 70% is used as gasoline or diesel.

Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technology are used to extract natural gas from vertical fractures in a shale formation. Thousand of pounds of proppant (sand or ceramic beads), and millions of gallons of water are blasted at the shale to get a fracture. The hydraulic fracturing fluid can contain formaldehyde, benzene, toulene, naphthalene and other chemicals known to be carcinogenic. After the frac, flowback water is then pumped out into a slurry pit and in most cases, contaminated. Some companies dispose of wastewater in underground injection wells. I worked as a mudlogger on an injection well in Campbell County, Wyoming. The injection well was to be used for coal-bed methane wastewater disposal.

There is no guarantee that the intended fracture has not traveled. Some injected fluids have been known to travel as far as 3,000 feet from the well. If wastewater is disposed of in streams, the temperature and sheer volumn will affect sensitive aquatic ecosystems.

Denise Skinner

Face-Off Over ‘Fracking’: Water Battle Brews On Hill, May 27, 2009. “Environmentalist and the natural gas industry are getting ready for a battle in Congress…” by Jeff Brady/NPR

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