Articles Posted in Energy and the Environment

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A major issue in shale plays is the use of underground supplies of fresh water to fracture-stimulate the well. Horizontal shale wells are fracture-treated with fresh water to which various chemicals are added, and huge volumes of fresh water are needed. A 5,000-foot lateral horizontal well will use up to seven million gallons of fresh water. Depending on the availability of underground water at the lease, the operator’s use of that resource could have a substantial adverse impact on the landowner’s subsurface water supply.

 

The impact of fracing in the Barnett Shale was a subject of study by the Texas Water Development Board in 2007. The TWDB concluded that 89% of the water supply for the region of the Barnett Shale field was supplied by surface water sources, and that groundwater used for Barnett Shale development accounted for only 3 percent of all groundwater used in the study area. In East Texas, underground water is more plentiful and using it to frac wells may not place a strain on aquifers. But the Eagle Ford Shale is generally in a more arid part of the state where surface water supplies are more scarce and underground water is a more precious resource. Where the mineral owner also owns the surface estate, attention needs to be paid to the impact of mineral development on underground water supplies.

Companies have developed recycling methods to re-use frac water, which have been tested on an experimental basis. Devon has reported that it has been able to recycle a small percentage of the frac water used in its Barnett Shale wells and in the last three years has recycled nearly 4 million gallons. One obstacle is cost. It was reported that it costs about 40 percent more to recycle the water than to dispose of it by underground injection. Devon has said that its cost of recycling water in Barnett Shale wells is $4.43 per barrel, vs. $2 to $2.50 per barrel for typical water disposal into an injection well. Devon said that less than 5% of Devon’s revenue goes toward the cost of handling flow-back water. For a good article on recycling frac water, go to this link.

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John Hanger, head of the agency responsible for regulating the oil and gas industry in Pennsylvania, said in an interview by the Philadelphia Inquirer that the movie Gasland, by Josh Fox, was “fundamentally dishonest” and “a deliberately false presentation for dramatic effect,” and called Fox a “propagandist.” Hanger was interviewed by Fox in the movie, at the end of which Hanger walked out on the interview. Hanger was formerly head of the environmental group Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future (PennFuture). He has sought stricter regulation of the industry over its objections.

Fox’s movie has come under criticism by others. Energy in Depth, an industry website, calls his movie “heay on hyperbole, light on facts.” Fox blames much of the pollution depicted in the movie on hydraulic fracturing. The movie shows water coming out of a faucet charged with methane and lit on fire.

Richard Stoneburner, President of Petrohawk Energy, commenting on the environmental opposition to hydraulic fracturing, has written that natural gas often occurs naturally in fresh water sands.

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Remarkably, three full-length documentaries are in circulation about the perils and benefits of the new shale drilling boom in the US. The first, Gasland, relates stories of the horrors caused by drilling in locations across the country. It won an award at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, and is now showing on HBO. Its official website is a call for environmental action. The second documentary, Haynesville: A Nation’s Hunt for Energy, has been shown at several film festivals and can be seen in Dallas, Houston and Forth Worth in July. The film critic for the Fort Worth Star Telegram calls Haynesville “fairer and smarter” than Gasland.  Watch the trailer at its website. The newest film is Gas Odyssey, which advocates development of the Marcellus shale in New York State. Its maker Aaron Price says that the issue of hydraulic fracturing “stopped being about science and facts a long time ago  It has become a political monster, and my hope is that this film will transcend politics and restore basic rights to New Yorkers – to develop their land through a tried and true, safe technology.”  Watch all three and make your own conclusions.

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Bryan Shaw, Chariman of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, published a letter in the Fort Worth Star Telegram assuring Fort Worth that there was no immediate health risk from contamination of air caused by oil and gas activities in the region. Shaw assured residents that “the TCEQ can state, without hesitation, that benzene levels in Fort Worth pose no immediate health risk.”

The TCEQ has taken extraordinary measures over the past several months to test air quality in and around Fort Worth after Al Amendariz, then an engineering professor at Southern Methodist University and now regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, published a report that air emissions from oil and gas activity in the Barnett Shale play were significantly contributing to reduced air quality in the DFW area. The concerns were exacerbated by reports from the town of DISH, in Denton County, that air emissions from oil and gas facilities were causing health problems in that community.

The TCEQ has also come under more general criticism and scrutiny by the EPA since Armendariz’s appointment. The EPA has contended that the TCEQ’s air-permitting program violates federal law, and the EPA has threatened to take over the program from the TCEQ. The Texas Attorney General has filed a legal challenge to the EPA’s efforts to pre-empt the State’s permitting program. The TCEQ and the EPA are in discussions to try to resolve the dispute.

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The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PDEP) on Monday ordered EOG Resources to suspend all drilling operations in Pennsylvania pending investigation of an EOG well blowout on June 3 in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania. EOG had previously said it planned to drill 40 wells in the Marcellus Shale in 2010, and it not operates about 265 wells in Pennsylvania. The blowout shot gas and drilling mud and some 36,000 gallons of frac fluid 75 feet into the air. There was no fire, and no one was hurt. The PDEP banned EOG from drilling for up to seven days and from using hydraulic fracturing techniques for up to fourteen days. EOG said the blowout appears to have been caused by leaking seals in a blowout preventer.

PDEP also ordered C.C. Forbes, a unit of oilfield services contractor Forbes Energy Services, a Canada drilling company, to stop all work on Marcellus Shale wells. Forbes provided post-hydraulic fracturing services for EOG on the well that blew out. Forbes has idled to rigs in the Marcellus Shale.

This is the second time PDEP has banned an operator from drilling wells in the Marcellus Shale.  Previously, PDEP banned Cabot Oil and Gas from conducting hydraulic fracturing operations in Susquehanna County after three spills of a chemical used in hydraulic fracturing at Cabot wells. PDEP also fined Cabot $56,650 and ordered the company to submit a new Pollution Prevention and Contingency Plan and Control Disposal Plan for its wells.

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The Texas Department of State Health Services issued its report on results of blood and urine samples taken from 28 residents of the tiny town of Dish, in Denton County, Texas. The report concludes that there is no evidence from those tests that the residents have elevated levels of airborne toxins in their bodies. 

As has been widely reported, the Mayor of Dish has been complaining that oil and gas operations around the town have resulted in exposure to airborne contaminants and health problems among citizens in the town. The town commissioned an air quality survey by a company named Wolf Eagle Environmental, which reported in December 2009 that the town “continues to show high levels of atmospheric VOCs known to have both carcinogenic and neurotoxin capabilities in concentrations that exceed TCEQ ESLs. High atmospheric concentractions of Methane were confirmed at various locations in both the August 2009 and December 2009 Air Quality Studies performed by Wolf Eagle.” The town also conducted a health survey of its citizens, and the survey results were analyzed by Wilma Subra, a Louisiana chemist, for Earthworks’ Oil and Gas Accountability Project. Ms. Subra’s report concluded that a significant number of residents reported health effects associated with toxics measured in excess of TCEQ screening levels, and it recommended that the Texas Department of State Health Services (TxDSHS) test the blood of community members.

TxDSHS reported that, although elevated levels of volatile organic compounds were found in some of the blood samples, “the pattern of VOC values was not consistent with a community-wide exposure to airborne contaminants, such as those that might be associated with natural gas drilling operations,” and could have come from other sources such as cigarette smoking, metal cleaners, degreaser and lubricants. TxDSHS also tested water samples from residents’ homes and found one home with an elevated level of a chemical derived from chlorine added to drinking water. The TxDSHS report cautioned that its investigation was limited to a one-time sampling event, that VOC’s stay in the body for only a short time, so the tests could reflect only recent exposures and not historical exposures.

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Gasland is a film documentary about the dangers caused by hydraulic fracturing of gas wells being drilled in shale plays across the U.S. It won a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival this year. It was filmed by Josh Fox, whose family owns land in Pennsylvania that is in the Marcellus Shale Play. Gasland is now being screened across the country.

Josh Fox was recently interviewed about his film on the PBS program NOW. The film asserts that frac’ing of wells has caused underground aquifers to be charged with methane in Pennsylvania and Colorado and poses severe risks of contamination to the water supply. Josh Fox notes that hydraulic fracturing is exempt from federal regulation, and he advocates for passage of the FRAC Act now before Congress that would give the EPA jurisdiction over hydraulic fracturing.

The comments about the NOW story posted on its website evidence the growing controversy over frac’ing.

 

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The Park Foundation has submitted a resolution for consideration at ExxonMobil’s annual meeting urging ExxonMobil to prepare a report on the environmental impact of fracturing operations and what can be done to reduce or eliminate environmental hazards caused by hydraulic fracturing.  The proposal, and ExxonMobil’s response, provide a good summary of the state of the debate in the U.S. over potential environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing. I have reproduced the entire statement from Exxon’s proxy statement below.

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An interesting article by Joe Carroll of Bloomberg News explores the problems faced by South Texas Ranchers seeking to require cleanup of old oilfield contamination. These problems are widespread in Texas and in my opinion the Texas Railroad Commission is ill equipped to address the problems.

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The Bureau of Land Management has signed a settlement agreement in which it agreed to “suspend” oil and gas leases covering BLM lands in Montana until it has completed a review of the effect of oil and gas development on greenhouse gas emissions.

The settlement was entered in Montana Environmental Information Center, et al. v. United States Bureau of Land Management, Case No. 08-178-M-DWM, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana, Missoula Division, on March 11, 2010. The case was brought by citizens groups who contended that federal law required the BLM to consider the cumulative impacts of oil and gas development on the environment, and specifically the greenhouse gas emissions caused by oil and gas well drilling and production, before granting oil and gas leases on lands in Montana.

The plaintiffs’ petition contains some interesting facts:

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