Hydrofracturing is not a gentle process. Sucking oil and gas from dense shale formations involves drilling, explosions, toxic chemicals, and millions of gallons of water pumped at crushing pressures. Drillers maintain that these processes are well understood and tightly controlled and take place far below groundwater supplies. But ultimately the safety and quality of a well is dependent on the operator, the particularities of each site, local regulations and politics, and many other details that can get lost amid the chaos of a drill pad. As the shale revolution has gained momentum, it has provoked an increasingly vocal backlash, with protestors from Grand Rapids to Paris calling for a “global frackdown.”1 In the United States, people worry that in the rush to embrace shale energy Congress granted hydrofrackers special exemptions from federal regulations—the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act—without thinking through the potential health and environmental consequences.
While most hydrofracturing has been conducted responsibly, the industry does not have a perfect track record: from time to time, gas wells blow out, water supplies are poisoned, soil and air are polluted, and the health of people and animals is compromised. Protests over these incidents have inflamed “fracktivists.” The debate over the Keystone XL pipeline—which could bring tar sands oil from Alberta Canada to the Gulf Coast—has raised the specter of groundwater pollution by fracking. And a spate of accidents by large resource companies—the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon, which caused the worst offshore oil spill in US history; an oil leak in Brazil and a refinery fire in California by Chevron; the fumbled attempt to drill in the Arctic by Royal Dutch Shell; and a rupture in ExxonMobil’s Pegasus pipeline that spilled crude oil in an Arkansas housing development—have stiffened opposition to shale exploration. Each of those companies is also engaged in hydrofracking.
Once a shale formation has been fracked, it cannot be unfracked and pieced back together again, opponents say. So it is prudent to ask tough questions and push for complete answers before greenlighting widespread energy exploration, especially in populated areas (such as the New York City watershed, above the Marcellus Shale). This line of thinking has created unlikely alliances between ranchers, industry, and environmentalists in places like Texas and Colorado. Forty years after the founding of the Environmental Protection Agency and signing of the Clean Water Act, the debate has reenergized the slumbering environmental movement, and attracted celebrity movie stars and musicians to the cause. In their 2012 single “Doom and Gloom” the Rolling Stones lament: “Fracking deep for oil, but there’s nothing in the sump.… I’m running out of water, so I’d better prime the pump!”
So deep is the divide between advocates and opponents that a straightforward conversation about hydrofracking is nearly impossible in certain communities. The stalemate has some advocates worried that resistance could hobble the shale revolution. The IEA notes that “concerns remain that production might involve unacceptable social and environmental damage,” and recommends that in order to preserve the “gas revolution” drillers engage with their opponents, be transparent about the chemicals and processes used, and submit to tighter regulations for the greater good (more on this in chapter 7).2
Yet ideally the questions skeptics ask should help improve communication and bridge the divide between the two camps, demystify hydrofracking, protect health and investments, and forestall the kind of environmental debacle that could set the entire industry back.
These questions begin with the hydrofracturing process itself, and the steps that are involved, as outlined earlier: the construction and operation of the drill pad; the drilling, integrity, and performance of the borehole; the injection of fluids underground; the flowback of these liquids to the surface; the capture, processing, and transportation of oil or gas; the disposal of wastewater; and the eventual closing down of the well.
Each of these steps raises concerns about various issues, including the depletion or pollution of water supplies; the mishandling of chemicals and waste at the surface; well blowouts; exposure to naturally-occurring radioactive nuclides; the migration of gas or other fumes into the air; contamination of food supplies; adverse health effects in man and animals; and earthquakes caused by the injection of wastewater into fault zones. Less quantifiable but still significant is the social impact of fracking—that is, what happens when rural landowners become rich, or don’t, by leasing their property to frackers; the impact on small communities when thousands of roughnecks suddenly appear to frack wells, then just as suddenly leave when the job is done; or the consequences of having hundreds of big trucks rumbling on country roads and dozens of noisy, brightly lit drill rigs operating 24/7.
As we’ve seen, water constitutes the largest component of fracking fluid by far, so it is not surprising that questions about the quantity and quality of water used by drillers have been contentious.
Opponents have expressed three main concerns about water. First, they worry that hydraulic fracturing uses so much H2O—about 5 million gallons per well, on average—that it can deplete groundwater supplies faster than nature can recharge them, especially in dry regions like Texas or California.3 (“Recharge” signifies the amount of water an aquifer—an underground water supply—regains each year from precipitation and runoff.) Second, the injection of chemicals—some of them toxic—underground at extreme pressures raises fears of chemical spills on the surface and consequent contamination of water supplies below ground as those chemicals seep into the fractured rock. Third, the safe disposal of fluid and “produced water” (groundwater that is brought to the surface in the course of drilling) remains a challenge, and has occasionally caused minor earthquakes when injected into geologic fault zones.
Because hydrofracking is new to many regions, legislators and regulators are scrambling to catch up with these issues—with, as we shall see, varying degrees of success.
While the amount of water used in hydraulic fracturing depends on the type, depth, location, and characteristics of each shale formation, a typical drilling operation will use 6,000 to 600,000 gallons of fluids just in the initial stages of the process, according to Chesapeake Energy.4 Over the course of their lifetime, some wells will use 2 to 4 million gallons, though others—such as those in Texas’ Eagle Ford shale—can use as much as 13 million gallons.5 (It should be noted that there are many variations among shale formations, that estimating water use is complex, and because no fractured well has yet experienced an entire life cycle these numbers are well-educated guesses.)
Water underlies most other resources, and as hydrofracking spreads it has set off “resource wars”—a competition for limited water supplies—that, in a state like Colorado, pit energy companies against traditional users such as farmers, ranchers, builders, industry, ski areas, and homeowners.6
In Texas, where the population is growing and a brutal drought has lingered since 2010, a study by the University of Texas found that the amount of water used in hydrofracturing more than doubled between 2008 and 2011.7 This amount will likely increase before leveling off at about 125,000 acre-feet in the 2020s. In 2011, 632 million barrels of water were used to produce 441 million barrels of oil. Some studies show that hydrofracking consumes less than 1 percent of the total water used statewide, which is much less than agriculture or even lawn watering in Texas. But water tends to be a local issue, and in drilling hotspots like Dimmit County, water use has grown by double digits to keep pace with the shale oil boom.
Luke Metzger, director of Environment Texas, charges that the industry is “absolutely not doing enough” to conserve water.8 Legislators have convened hearings and undertaken studies, and have pushed the industry to conserve. But in 2011, only one-fifth of the water used for hydrofracking was brackish or recycled water; the rest was clean water. Furthermore, hauling water to well pads and taking wastewater away requires hundreds of trips by heavy trucks, which adds traffic, wears out roadways, and antagonizes the public. Oil and gas drillers are “in the spotlight right now,” said state representative James Keffer, the Republican chairman of the Texas House Energy Resources Committee. “They have to prove themselves.”9
As hydrofracking technology spreads around the world, concerns like these will follow it. According to the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, European shale formations lie 1.5 times deeper than those in the United States, and require more fluid to hydrofrack.10 And in hot, dry nations with fast-growing populations—such as India, Australia, and South Africa—water is already a grave concern; hydrofracking will therefore add further competition for limited supplies.
Oil- and gas-bearing shale formations deep underground are often connected by cracks, fissures, and channels to water-bearing formations. The latter hold groundwater, and many worry that chemicals, seeping methane, and other pollutants will contaminate people’s drinking supplies.
Even in the best-run hydrofracturing operations, there are many opportunities for water pollution, a risk that increases significantly with wildcat operators who sometimes manage their drill sites less carefully than well-established firms.
Engineers who investigate industrial accidents note that as equipment and industrial processes grow increasingly sophisticated, and reach deeper and deeper into the earth, the “human factor” often leads to costly mistakes.11 Bad judgment can lead to well blowouts. Poorly built or damaged, boreholes and pipelines—such as those used to transport wastewater to treatment plants—can allow pollutants to flow into groundwater. Accidents involving trucks or the storage of fracking chemicals can lead to chemical spills, and the runoff will eventually be flushed into rivers, streams, or aquifers. Wastewater storage ponds allow volatile compounds—such as benzene, xylene, and naphthalene—to evaporate into the atmosphere, and can overflow when it rains.12
Hydrofrackers say they use an array of sophisticated engineering techniques—such as magnetic resonance imaging and sonar—to study their underground explosions and carefully control the extent of the fractures in shale formations, and thus the spread of fluids.13 They say that the actual fracturing happens thousands of feet from water supplies and below layers of impenetrable rock that seals the world above from what happens down below. Yet this is not always the case. Even if freshwater supplies are sealed off from the region where fluid is injected, the gas well itself can create openings in rock: a borehole is surrounded by cement, but often there are large empty pockets, which can cause buckling, or the cement itself can crack under pressure. The powerful pumps can cause gas and fluids to leak into surrounding water supplies.14
In the United States, hydrofracking is suspected in at least 36 cases of groundwater contamination, and in several cases EPA has determined that it was the likely source of pollution.15
A report by the Ground Water Protection Council found that only 4 of the 31 drilling states it surveyed have regulations that address fracturing, and that no state requires companies to track the volume of chemicals left underground.16 One in five states doesn’t require that the concrete casing used in wells be tested before hydrofracking begins. And more than half the states allow waste pits filled with fluids to intersect with the water table, even though the pits have allegedly caused water contamination.
Drillers have developed methods to reduce spills and seepage of chemicals, but are usually left to implement them on their own. The result is that protections at drilling sites just a few miles apart can be completely different.
In a 2011 conference call with reporters, Richard Ranger, an American Petroleum Institute senior policy adviser and frequent commentator on hydrofracking, said: “The issue of where do these fracking fluids go, the answer is based on the geology being drilled.… You’ve got them trapped somewhere thousands of feet below with the only pathway out being the wellbore. I’m just not sure that that study is out there.”17 Aside from the startling admission that the industry doesn’t know where fracking fluids end up, Ranger added that there is no way to conclusively determine whether hydrofracking is safe or unsafe.
Following up on this question, the independent online newsroom ProPublica queried over 40 academic experts, scientists, industry officials, and federal and state regulators. None of them could provide a definitive answer.18
Despite assurances from those in favor of fracking that there are no proven cases of affected water, numerous cases of suspected groundwater contamination have been documented, and science writer Valerie Brown, for one, predicts that “public exposure to the many chemicals involved in energy development is expected to increase over the next few years, with uncertain consequences.”19
In December 2011 the Environmental Protection Agency released its first thorough study of groundwater pollution with a draft report on the drinking water in Pavillion, Wyoming, which contained “compounds likely associated with … hydraulic fracturing.”20 The multiyear study was peer reviewed by scientists, and was among the first by the government to directly link fracking with groundwater pollution. It was considered a “blockbuster” by fracking opponents.21 But then the agency seemed to back off from its conclusions.
The EPA’s investigation began in 2008, when Pavillion residents complained that their water had turned brown and undrinkable. The EPA drilled its own wells near hydrofracking operations, and in sampling the groundwater detected methane and “high concentrations of benzenes, xylenes, gasoline range organics, diesel range organics and … hydrocarbons in ground water samples … [and] water near-saturated in methane.” Benzene was found in one well at concentrations of 246 micrograms per liter, far beyond the legal standard of 5 micrograms per liter.22
EPA scientists tried to find other potential sources for the pollution, but concluded that the organic compounds must have been “the result of direct mixing of hydraulic fracking fluids with ground water,” and advised locals to stop drinking from their wells.23
EnCana Corporation, the Canadian company that drilled the wells, and North America’s second-largest producer of natural gas (after ExxonMobil), denied its wells had polluted Pavillion’s water. A few energy-policy analysts agreed, saying the EPA’s evidence was “incomplete.” Nonetheless EnCana’s shares dropped over 6 percent on the New York Stock Exchange, and the incident hit other companies, such as Chesapeake Energy Corporation, which fell 5.1 percent.24
Later, after complaints by industry and Republican legislators, the EPA softened its position on the Pavillion case and said it would await the results of a peer review of its science. In June 2013, the agency abruptly announced that it would discontinue the peer review and turn the study over to the state of Wyoming.25 In what would appear to be a conflict of interest, the state’s research will be funded by EnCana, the company at the center of the dispute. Industry boosters said the EPA’s decision was simply a long-awaited recognition that the agency had overreached in Pavillion. Opponents, however, were aghast, and charged that the EPA was ducking its responsibilities. “The EPA just put a ‘kick me’ sign on it,” blogged John Hanger, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Pennsylvania, and the former secretary of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. “Its critics from all quarters will now oblige.”26
Indeed, fracking opponents detected an unsettling trend, according to ProPublica. In 2012 the EPA’s budget was cut 17 percent, to below 1998 levels, while sequestration cuts starved research funds for cases like the one in Pavillion.27 And the EPA seemed to be in retreat on numerous fronts: a probe into groundwater pollution in Dimock, Pennsylvania, was canceled; a claim that methane released by a driller in Parker County, Texas, was contaminating residents’ tap water was dropped; and a 2010 estimate that showed gas leaks from wells and pipelines was contributing to climate change was sharply reduced.
“We are seeing a pattern that is of great concern,” said Amy Mall, a senior policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council. The EPA needs to “ensure that the public is getting a full scientific explanation.”28
The agency has said that the series of decisions were unrelated, and that the Pavillion case could be handled more quickly by Wyoming officials. Yet, in private, EPA officials have acknowledged that brutal political and financial pressures are tying their hands when it comes to enforcing environmental protections.29
The EPA under President Obama has paid close attention to hydrofracking operations, but this may have collided with the president’s plan—outlined in a major policy speech in 2013—to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by relying heavily on natural gas.30 The Obama EPA, critics say, has not always rendered clear and consistent decisions.31
When a family in the Fort Worth suburb of Weatherford found their water bubbling “like champagne,” suspicions fell on nearby hydrofracking by Range Resources, a leading independent natural gas driller. In late 2010, the EPA issued a rare emergency order declaring that at least two homes in Weatherford were in immediate danger from a well saturated with methane and benzene. EPA required Range to clean up the well and provide the homeowners with safe water. The state backed up Range, who denied the contamination had been caused by their drilling, but an independent investigator found that chemicals in the well were nearly identical to the gas that Range was producing. Then the dispute shifted into federal court just as the EPA was asking Range and other energy companies to participate in a national study of hydrofracking. Range declined to participate so long as the agency pursued its action in Texas. In March 2012, EPA retracted its emergency order in Weatherford, ended the court battle with Range, and refused to comment on the case other than to say it was moving on to focus on “a joint effort on the science and technology of energy extraction.” The homeowner who brought the case was outraged, and critics charge that the EPA had “dropped the ball.”32
As a consequence of the EPA’s shifting stance, environmentalists and some energy analysts have not been impressed with the regulatory oversight of hydrofracking. But the agency insists it takes such contamination issues seriously. As of this writing, the EPA is in the midst of a major national study on the environmental impact of the drilling technique and will publish a draft report in 2014—though it has warned that its final results will not be made public until 2016, President Obama’s last full year in office.33
As we’ve seen, methane is the main component of natural gas, and it has a climate-changing potential 20 times greater than carbon dioxide when measured over a 100-year period. While methane is not toxic, if allowed to concentrate in an enclosed space it carries a high risk of combustion.
Hydrofracking opponents have been galvanized by suspicions that methane can migrate from wells into underground aquifers and water wells, and then into the atmosphere. They suspect that cement well casings are not always sound, and worry that groundwater quality is diminished by the gas. There have been a number of documented cases of methane migration. As early as 1987, the EPA reported that fluid from a gas well hydrofracked in Jackson County, West Virginia, contaminated a private well in 1984.34 But the most famous case centers on the Appalachian town of Dimock, Pennsylvania (pop. 1,500). In 2006, a cadre of “landmen” appeared in Dimock and quickly convinced residents to sell their mineral rights for $25 an acre. (Similar deals in neighboring towns would later cost $4,000–$5,000 an acre.)35 Two years later, the landscape was dotted by drilling towers and hydrofracking equipment, and soon Dimock was home to some of the most productive gas wells in the state. But residents’ drinking supplies turned brown or orange, the water smelled sulfurous, and in at least one case methane built up in a private water well and exploded. When tested, local water showed dangerous levels of methane, iron, and aluminum.36 Pets and farm animals shed hair. Sores appeared on the legs of children, and adults suffered from ringing headaches.37
The press took note, and Dimock became known as “ground zero” in the dispute over the safety of hydraulic fracturing.38 The most notorious scene in the documentary film GasLand shows a Colorado man lighting his tap water on fire. It is a startling sight, and activists insist that it demonstrates how methane can migrate from hydrofracked wells into peoples’ drinking supplies in places like Dimock. The industry disputes this, however, and says that naturally occurring (or “biogenic”) methane had infiltrated Dimock’s water long before the frackers arrived. The “flaming water” scene in GasLand, they say, is merely a parlor trick used to scare the public.39 Some water wells do indeed descend through many layers of shale and coal, which can naturally seep methane into groundwater—by so-called “methane migration.” But reports of methane migrating naturally into wells date back to the 1800s, and while such incursions of gas may or may not be related to drilling, there is no conclusive evidence that they are the result of fracking.40 Even if investigators use isotope identification to nail down a particular well’s unique gas “fingerprint,” it is impossible to prove the methane migrated into a water supply unless the water had been tested before drilling began. But in an open letter to audience, press, and peers, GasLand director Josh Fox insists that he has his facts right.41
Regardless, high levels of chemicals associated with hydrofracking—arsenic, barium, DEHP, glycol compounds, manganese, phenol, and sodium—were found in the drinking water of Dimock. In 2009, 15 local families sued Cabot Oil and Gas, the Houston-based energy firm for allegedly tainting their wells. (Cabot had 130 drilling violations in Dimock.) Pennsylvania—a pro-hydrofracking state—fined Cabot $120,000, banned it from drilling further wells in Dimock (though existing ones were allowed to continue operations), and demanded the company provide clean drinking water to 10 households. A consent decree was signed, and in 2010 Cabot was reportedly ordered to pay a $4 million settlement.42 Some families accepted methane treatment systems from the company, and, perhaps worried about their plummeting real-estate values, now insist the water is fine. But others, convinced that methane was only one of several chemicals tainting their water, sued Cabot.
In 2011, EPA informed Dimock residents that their well water was not an immediate health threat; but in January 2012, the agency reversed itself and ordered its hazardous site cleanup division to investigate.43 Their testing found methane and arsenic in just one well, which “did not indicate levels of contaminants that would give EPA reason to take further action.” Yet four independent scientists found elevated levels of methane and toxic chemicals related to hydrocarbons in local wells.
Today the town remains polarized over the subject of hydrofracking. Sampling of Dimock’s water by universities and the EPA is ongoing.
In response to negative press, energy executives defended their process: “In sixty years of hydraulic fracturing across the country more than a million wells have been fracked,” said Jim Smith, spokesman for the Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York. It has never, he added, “harmed a drop of water.”44
The question of the source of methane remains an open one. As technology improves, it has become possible to identify the source of certain types of methane. Naturally occurring methane is considered “biogenic” (created by organic material decomposition), as opposed to “thermogenic” (created through the thermal decomposition of buried organic material). Biogenic methane is found at shallow depths, where water wells are typically drilled; energy companies usually pursue the deeper thermogenic methane. Through the use of isotope analysis, the methane in water can be identified as either biogenic or thermogenic, thereby determining if it is the result of natural causes or drilling.
A government study done in Colorado concluded that the methane gas tapped by drillers had migrated into dozens of water wells, possibly through natural faults and fissures exacerbated by hydrofracking. Dennis Coleman, an Illinois geologist and expert on molecular testing, has witnessed methane gas seeping underground for more than seven miles—many times what the industry says should be possible. “There is no such thing as ‘impossible’ in terms of migration,” Coleman told ProPublica. “Like everything else in life, it comes down to the probability.”45
The mantra of the energy industry is, as Energy in Depth puts it, that hydrofracking fluid is “greater than 99 percent … water and sand, and the fraction of what remains includes many common industrial and even household materials that millions of American consumers use every day.”46 Most of those chemicals, say industry boosters, are no more harmful than “what’s underneath your kitchen sink.”47
While some of the chemicals are common and benign—sodium chloride (used in table salt), borate salts (used in cosmetics), or guar gum (used to make ice cream)—others contain toxic additives—such as benzene (a carcinogen) or the solvent 2-Butoxyethanol, known as 2-BE.48 While they comprise a tiny percentage of the mixture, hazardous exposure to some of these chemicals is measured in the parts per million.
The most common chemical, used in particular between 2005 and 2009, was methanol; other widely used chemicals included isopropyl alcohol, 2-Butoxyethanol, ethylene glycol, hydrochloric acid, petroleum distillates, and ethanol.49 (For a list of chemicals known to have been used in hydrofracking, see the appendix at the end of this book.) Drillers tend to disclose only enough information about their fracking fluids to comply with worker-safety regulations. This usually consists of a product’s trade name and rarely includes a complete list of constituents. A 2011 congressional report found that of 2,500 hydrofracking chemicals used, over 650 of them contained “known or possible human carcinogens, regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, or listed as hazardous air pollutants.” The report also revealed that between 2005 and 2009, 279 products had at least one component listed as “proprietary” on their Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) material safety data sheet, meaning that the company that produced and used it chose not to make it public. The congressional committee noted that “Companies are injecting fluids containing unknown chemicals about which they may have limited understanding of the potential risks posed to human health and the environment.”50
As for the small percentage of chemicals that are kept confidential, energy officials defend the use of trade secrets as necessary for innovation. This position is controversial, not least because every one million gallons of fluid blasted underground contains 10,000 gallons of chemicals.51 Without knowing what chemicals are being used, it is impossible to test a site for them. While under the Safe Drinking Water Act the EPA regulated most types of underground fluid injection, the 2005 energy bill—permitting the “Halliburton Loophole”—stripped the agency of its authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing, and hence to determine whether the chemicals it uses are dangerous.
As noted in the previous chapter, the argument behind this special exemption was that state regulations sufficiently protect the environment, and that companies should be able to withhold the identity and amount of chemicals used as a trade secret. The result is that drilling regulation is left to a patchwork of state laws, and it is up to drillers to decide what constitutes a trade secret.52
This has hydrofracking opponents howling that the fox has been left to guard the chicken coop. According to the EPA website, “Several statutes may be leveraged to protect water quality, but EPA’s central authority to protect drinking water is drawn from the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). The protection of [drinking water] is focused in the Underground Injection Control (UIC) program, which regulates the subsurface emplacement of fluid.”53 The site goes on to point out that while the Energy Policy Act of 2005 “provided for exclusions to UIC authority,” and specifically excluded hydrofracking from its regulation, some aspects of it, including the use of diesel fuel in fracking, was still regulated by the UIC program. In 1986, Congress enacted EPCRA—the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act—a statute that requires drillers to maintain detailed information about each additive used in hydrofracking, information that should be available to federal, state, and local governments, to help first responders in case of an emergency (such as a well blowout). But fracking opponents say EPCRA does not help the average citizen identify potential pollutants, and the measure remains controversial—especially a caveat noted by the EPA: “All information submitted pursuant to EPCRA regulations is publicly accessible, unless protected by a trade secret claim.”54
In studying hydrofracking fluids, Dr. Theo Colborn and her colleagues at the Endocrine Disruption Exchange in Colorado identified nearly 1,000 chemical products and some 650 individual chemicals in fracking fluids. At least 59 of these chemicals, and probably more, have been used to frack wells in New York State. Of these, 40 of the 59 chemicals (or 67.8 percent) had “the potential to cause multiple adverse health effects,” and 19 (32.2 percent) cause “deleterious effects on the environment,” according to a report by the American Academy of Pediatrics.55
As noted in chapter 1, about 33,000 natural gas wells are drilled each year, and 90 percent of them employ hydrofracking.56 This translates into billions of gallons of potentially hazardous fluids being used annually. The chemicals and proppants added to the fluid, and naturally occurring contaminants, such as boron, barium, radium, and salts—including highly saline brine that dates to the Paleozoic era in the Marcellus Shale—stirred up by the drilling process.57 (Salts can kill vegetation.) The result is flowback, a murky liquid, thick with salts, sulfur, chemicals, minerals, and proppants; it smells of sulfur, and sometimes contains low levels of radiation. Flowback is comprised of as little as 3 percent and as much as over 80 percent of the total amount of water and other materials used to fracture a well, according to the industry-backed website FracFocus.org.58
The flowback generally gets pumped into a pit, then into a separator tank that allows oil to surface; oil is skimmed off and sold. The remaining flowback needs to be carefully disposed of, which is where things get tricky.
Most states dispose of fluids by pumping them deep underground, into injection wells (which are distinct from gas and oil wells).59 These deposits are regulated by EPA under the Safe Drinking Water Act. But the geologic formations under Pennsylvania—the East Coast’s test case for hydrofracking—are unsuitable for injection wells.60 Further, Pennsylvania produces so much wastewater that it threatens to overwhelm injection wells in neighboring Ohio.61 Flowback and produced water are therefore commonly stored in large tanks, holding ponds (for evaporation), or, more often, sent by pipeline or truck to public wastewater treatment plants. This raises the chance of spills, traffic accidents, and wear and tear on roads, a major bone of contention for many rural communities. If the Marcellus and Utica Shales are opened to widespread hydrofracking, states like New York could produce hundreds of millions of gallons of flowback every day. That wastewater will likely be trucked to treatment plants. In Pennsylvania, that is already the case.
Yet most sewage treatment plants are not equipped to remove the chemicals, salts, Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), and radioactive elements in the drillers’ wastewater. These contaminants can greatly increase the salinity of rivers and streams, which can harm aquatic life; affect the taste, smell, and color of tap water; interfere with the biological treatment process at sewage plants; and damage industrial and household equipment. Without a process to identify and test for these chemicals, it is impossible to know whether they are in drinking supplies.62
Pennsylvania promotes itself as hydrofracking-friendly, and former state DEP secretary John Hanger has said that “there are business pressures” on drillers to “cut corners.… It’s cheaper to dump wastewater than to treat it.”63 Yet Hanger insists that fears of water contamination from flowback are overblown. “Every single drop that is coming out of the tap in Pennsylvania today meets the safe drinking water standard,” he maintains. But Hanger acknowledges that state water treatment plants are not equipped to treat flowback.64
In 2013, the federal EPA fined three Pennsylvania treatment plants for accepting hundreds of thousands of gallons of Marcellus Shale flowback that contained “multiple toxins and more than 7 million pounds of salt every month.”65 The plants discharged the water into the Allegheny River watershed, which provides drinking water to Pittsburgh and dozens of other communities. While the EPA penalty was only $83,000, the company that runs the treatment plants is temporarily banned from accepting further flowback and must invest $30 million to upgrade its facilities in order to comply with newly stringent state regulations.
The simple answer is yes. The explosives and powerful pumps used by hydraulic fracturers exert enormous pressures, and sometimes loosen naturally occurring radioactive material called “radionuclides”—including radon, radium, thorium, and uranium—from subterranean rock. The flowback dislodges these elements from shale and sucks them up to the surface. Their radioactivity is low but measurable. Another source of radiation is man-made radionuclides, which are sometimes used as “tracers,” to help define the injection profile, the fractures, and the fluid flow created by hydrofracking.66
Naturally occurring radionuclides are a subject of increasing concern. Their half-lives are longer than those of man-made isotopes, and they linger in the environment longer. Long-term exposure to radiation can have adverse health effects; even small amounts of exposure to radionuclides can be harmful.67 When radon (a carcinogenic gas) and its byproducts decay, they can waft into the air, lodge in lungs, and cause lung cancer. If a gas well’s radon-laced flowback mixes with drinking water, it can cause cancer of the internal organs, especially stomach cancer.
Industry officials and EPA regulators have played down the health risks of fracking.68 But pediatricians affiliated with the Preventive Medicine and Family Health Committee of the state of New York have called for a moratorium on hydrofracking until its impacts on health are better understood.69
In 2011, the New York Times uncovered what it termed “never-reported studies” by the EPA and a “confidential study by the drilling industry” concluding that flowback radionuclides cannot be completely diluted.70 The newspaper has also reported that the Pennsylvania DEP has turned a blind eye to these concerns, requesting, rather than requiring, gas companies to treat their own flowback rather than sending it to public water treatment facilities, for example.
As mentioned above, most states outside the Northeast dispose of flowback by pumping it deep underground into injection wells regulated by the EPA.
In Texas, wastewater injection wells are becoming a common phenomenon. Truckloads of flowback run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at a rate of 30 to 40 per day in some small south Texas towns. The amount of wastewater disposed of in state wells has jumped from 46 million barrels in 2005 to nearly 3.5 billion barrels in 2011, according to state regulators.71 The state has over 8,000 active disposal wells, which is reportedly far more than Ohio or Pennsylvania. Texas has an additional 25,000 wells that use waste fluids to hydrofrack for additional oil and gas.72
Complaints to the Railroad Commission of Texas, the state’s oil and gas regulator, argue that wastewater has spilled from pumps, tanks, and storage ponds, killing trees and vegetation. In 2005, flowback escaped from a disposal well and contaminated an aquifer, the Pecos River Cenozoic Alluvium. Remediation is ongoing; the company that operated the well had its permit revoked and declared bankruptcy.73 While such cases are the exception rather than the rule, they undermine public trust in hydrofracking in general.
In addition to concerns over flowback and its potential for contamination of water sources, earthquakes remain a central focus point for opponents. The two are related through injection wells.
Hydrofracking has been blamed for causing earthquakes from Arkansas to England, though most of these tremors have been so minor as to be nearly undetectable. In fact, according to one British report, they “cause no more seismic activity than jumping off a ladder.”74 But that’s not the entire picture. As the number of wastewater injection wells has risen since 2001, the number of earthquakes measuring 3.0 or higher on the Richter scale in midcontinent regions that are usually seismically quiet has surged—from 50 in 2009 to 87 in 2010 and 134 in 2011, representing a sixfold increase over last century—according to a US Geological Survey (USGS) report.75
Researchers from the Energy Institute at Durham University in England analyzed 198 reports of induced seismicity (minor quakes that are caused by human activity) since 1928. They found only three earthquakes they argued were caused by hydrofracking, all in 2011: one near Blackpool, England, one in the Holt River Basin in Canada (magnitude 3.8 on the Richter scale), and one in Oklahoma (magnitude 5.7).76
The Oklahoma quake was caused by the injection of millions of gallons of flowback into deep rock formations. The water pressure built up and weakened the rock; sited near a geologic fault, this apparently set off tremors that hit Prague, Oklahoma, destroying 14 homes, and damaging almost 200 other buildings. The tremors were felt across 17 states.77
Lately, injection wells have been linked to a string of tremors in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Ohio, Texas, and Colorado. According to the USGS, only a fraction of roughly 40,000 waste-fluid disposal wells have caused earthquakes large enough to be of concern.78 While the magnitudes of these quakes is generally small, USGS reports that their frequency is increasing.
As we’ve seen, once a well has undergone hydraulic fracturing, natural gas released from shale flows naturally up the borehole to the surface, where most of it is captured and put to use. But some of this gas, most of which is methane, escapes into the atmosphere. These leaks are called “fugitive emissions.”
Methane can escape accidentally, through broken pipes, valves, or other equipment (diesel- or natural gas-powered compressors, drill rigs, pumps). A 2009 report in Pipeline and Gas Journal notes that while old, cast-iron pipes make up only 3 percent of US gas mains, they are responsible for most of the leaks—32 percent of methane emissions—from the natural gas distribution system. In 2012, some 3,300 gas leaks were discovered in Boston alone, according to a report in Environmental Pollution.79
Methane is sometimes released on purpose—when it is vented or not fully burned during flaring—in the refining process, and when being piped into homes or businesses. According to one report, leaks in Russian pipelines account for 0.6 percent of the natural gas transported.80
Fugitive emissions of methane in particular are hard to measure, and researchers disagree on the numbers. The EPA has estimated methane leaks at a rate of 2.3 percent of total production. But a recent study in Colorado and Utah found leakage rates of 4 percent and 9 percent, respectively.81 The new study—conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association and the University of Colorado at Boulder—offers only a “snapshot” of a specific location on a specific day, but if the true figure is at the upper end of the scale, opponents argue, natural gas is actually not cleaner than other fuels.
This question challenges one of the central rationales for promoting natural gas—that it burns cleaner than other fossil fuels—and, not surprisingly, has led to a rancorous dispute.
The previously mentioned 2011 methane study issued by Robert W. Howarth and colleagues at Cornell concluded that “3.6 percent to 7.9 percent of the methane from shale-gas production escapes to the atmosphere in venting and leaks over the lifetime of a well.”82 This represents up to double the amount from conventional gas wells. If Howarth is correct, shale gas would be more polluting than oil or coal. But Howarth’s study has been heavily criticized by the energy industry, and there are those who disagree with his methodology, including his Cornell colleague Lawrence Cathles, who called the study “seriously flawed.”83 In response, Howarth issued new data in 2012 that backed up his original findings, and noted: “Compared to coal, the [climate] footprint of shale gas is at least 20 percent greater and perhaps more than twice as great on the 20-year horizon and is comparable when compared over 100 years.”84
Yet other studies conducted by the US Department of Energy and Carnegie Mellon University show that emissions from shale gas are much smaller than Howarth found. Research published by the EPA in 2012 put the figure at 2.2 percent, only a little more than conventional gas, and its 2013 inventory reduced the agency’s estimate further, to 1.5 percent.85
Answering questions about the true impact of fugitive emissions is important for both sides of the debate. As the International Energy Agency (IEA) cautions, in its report “Golden Rules for a Golden Age of Gas”: “Greenhouse-gas emissions must be minimized both at the point of production and throughout the entire natural gas supply chain. Improperly addressed, these concerns threaten to curb, if not halt, the development of unconventional resources.”86
There have been cases where release of airborne substances tied to hydrofracking has coincided with reports of health problems among residents. People living near shale gas drilling pads complain anecdotally of headaches, diarrhea, nosebleeds, dizziness, blackouts, muscle spasms, and other problems, as the documentary GasLand made clear. But the evidence isn’t always conclusive.
A 2011 study of air quality around natural gas sites in Fort Worth found no health threats. But the air in DISH, Texas (a town that renamed itself in a marketing deal with a satellite company) was found to have elevated levels of disulphides, benzene, xylenes, and naphthalene—harmful chemicals traced back to hydrofrackers’ compressor stations.87
In Garfield County, Colorado, volatile organic compound emissions increased 30 percent between 2004 and 2006; during the same period there was a rash of health complaints from local residents, ranging from headaches and nausea to adrenal and pituitary tumors.88 But there are few, if any, epidemiological studies that might show that hydrofracking caused these problems.
New technology and regulations could cut methane leakage to less than 1 percent of total production and ensure that natural gas impacts the climate less than coal or diesel fuel, according to the World Resources Institute.89 As of this writing, the EPA is finalizing new standards to control emissions from upstream oil and gas operations that would reduce fugitive methane by 13 percent in 2015 and 25 percent in 2035.90
In places such as Silt, Colorado, hydrofracking has allegedly caused serious health problems. In 2001, a gas well being fractured near the home of Laura Amos blew out, tainting her water supply with 2-BE. Amos developed a rare adrenal-gland tumor. State regulators fined EnCana Corporation, the operator, $99,400 because gas was found in Amos’s drinking water. The company disputed this but did not fight it in court. Other state regulators said hydrofracking was not to blame, claiming that that the 2-BE that had poisoned Amos came from household cleaning products. In 2006, Amos accepted a multimillion-dollar settlement from EnCana, which also bought her property. As part of her settlement, she signed a nondisclosure agreement and has refused to discuss the case further.91
One reason for a lack of hard evidence about such cases is that once they have been settled the documents are sealed.92 Industry groups—relying on a strict definition of fracking that does not include other aspects of the process, such as poorly drilled wells and leaking methane—steadfastly deny that hydrofracking pollutes air and water. This stance enrages opponents, who cite a litany of fines and penalties by regulators against frackers, and complain that the drillers’ lack of transparency puts public and environmental health at risk.
Several research organizations and journalists have suggested that industry and governmental pressure have made reporting on hydrofracking difficult, and that environmental reports may have been censored. In 2011, the New York Times reported that the results of a 2004 EPA study may have been censored due to political pressure.93 An early draft of that study had discussed the possibility of environmental threats due to hydrofracking, but the final report changed that conclusion.
A 2012 study by a team of researchers at Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine suggests that hydraulic fracturing has sickened or killed cows, horses, goats, llamas, chickens, dogs, cats, fish, and other animals.94 The authors looked at 24 case studies in six shale-rich states and found that hundreds of cows in Colorado, Louisiana, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas died or gave birth to stillborn babies after being exposed to hydrofracking fluids. This is the first, and so far only, peer-reviewed report to suggest such a link.
The study noted that it was difficult to assess health impacts because of the Halliburton Loophole. The researchers recommended that all hydraulic fracturing fluids be disclosed; that animals—and their milk, cheese, eggs, and other products—near wells be tested; that water, soil, and air be monitored before and after drilling begins; and that nondisclosure agreements be limited.
Questions about fracking’s impact on human health are even more controversial. A number of doctors and academics have expressed concern about potential long- and short-term health risks from gas production. While the EPA investigation of hydrofracking’s impact on drinking water is a good start, they argue, broader studies on its effects on people are necessary. The idea is to bring academic rigor to the often emotional debate.
Researchers at Harvard are building a mapping tool to correlate gas-drilling operations with reports of nausea, headaches, and respiratory ailments. And a team of toxicologists from the University of Pennsylvania have organized researches from 17 institutions to review cases of sickness from people who live near drill pads, compressor stations, or wastewater ponds.95 The study will consider the toxicity of flowback wastewater; whether air quality is dangerously impacted by flaring gases; and whether industry’s reliance on diesel fuel to power drills, compressors, and trucks creates an unhealthy environment. The first project surveyed Pennsylvania residents who live in the Marcellus Shale region about health symptoms. Future projects include assessing the health of people living in the Barnett Shale region of Texas, and an examination of how state gas-drilling laws impact public health issues.
Although energy companies continue to hydrofrack, and with impressive results, they have not won the public’s confidence. At the heart of this lies the Halliburton Loophole, allowing drillers to keep certain fracking fluids secret. The International Energy Agency suggests that for oil and gas producers to make peace with their adversaries and move forward, they should take common-sense steps: improve transparency about the chemicals they use; engage communities better; monitor wells more effectively; toughen rules on well design and surface spills; manage water supplies carefully; and reduce methane emissions. The IEA reckons that implementing such measures would add just 7 percent to total well costs, and would go a long way toward pacifying critics.96
The hydrofracking industry is extremely competitive, and there appears to be dissent among drillers over how much to cooperate with one another and what steps to take to ameliorate public concern. Yet some in the industry seem inclined to heed the IEA’s advice, and have advocated for greater disclosure. Chesapeake Energy, which once compared keeping the chemical makeup of its fracking fluids secret to “Coke protecting its syrup formula,” now says that disclosure would promote meaningful dialogue. “We as an industry need to demystify,” Chesapeake’s then-CEO, Aubrey McClendon, acknowledged to an industry conference in 2012, “and be very upfront about what we are doing, disclose the chemicals that we are using, search for alternatives to some of the chemicals.”97
In 2011, FracFocus.org—a national registry to which operators can voluntarily post details about the ingredients of their fracking fluids—was launched by the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (an association of states), and the Groundwater Protection Council (a group of state water officials), with backing from energy companies. Of 18 states that require drillers to disclose their chemicals, 11 require or allow them to be reported by FracFocus.98 But the FracFocus database—which has over 35,000 records—was initially plagued by incorrect entries and was designed to search just one well at a time. Activists said that the definition of “trade secret” should be clarified, and that FracFocus should include historical information. In late 2012, FracFocus changed the way it collects data from companies, and said it intends to create an easier-to-use and more comprehensive database; the following year, the website made it possible for regulators to search and aggregate information for the first time.99
But disclosure remains a sticking point. In Texas, legislators passed the nation’s first rules requiring public disclosure of fracking chemicals.100 Designed to promote transparency, the rules were held up as a model for the rest of the country. Yet few drillers complied. Between April 2011 and early December 2012, Texas drillers used terms such as “secret,” “confidential,” or “proprietary” 10,120 times out of 12,410 hydraulic fractures reported to FracFocus, according to the Austin Statesman. In the Eagle Ford Shale, the major oil and gas play in south Texas, the trade secret exemption was used 2,297 times out of 3,100 hydraulic fractures. “I think it’s a loophole big enough you can drive a frack truck through,” observed Luke Metzger, director of Environment Texas. “If the companies argue that fracking is safe, why are they hiding behind these trade secret loopholes? If you’re going to the doctor, you want to know what you might have been exposed to.”101
In 2013 Ken Salazar, then secretary of the interior, reiterated that while the Obama administration is preparing to open public lands to fracking, “there has to be disclosure” of chemicals used in the process. “People need to know what’s being injected into the underground. I tell people in the oil and gas industry that unless they embrace … disclosure, that it’ll be the Achilles Heel of their industry.”102