
Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom  - zzzeek
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=groundwater-contamination-may-end-the-gas-fracking-boom
======
rayiner
Nothing will stop the fraking. It's simply too profitable for Congress to do
something about it (one of the few bright areas in a dismal economy), and the
courts have gutted the environmental laws too much for the courts to do
anything about it. It's an intrinsically attractive business: the product is
something (energy) that's extremely valuable and has exploding demand, and
many of the inherent costs of creating that product can be foisted onto people
in the surrounding community that have little recourse, legal or otherwise, to
do anything about it.

Fracking will end when the oil/gas is gone. In its wake it will leave behind
the mess the energy and chemical industries have left all over the country:
polluted, barely usable land in economically devastated regions (which is what
happens after the oil is gone and the companies leave) that must be cleaned up
at enormous public expense:
[http://www.epa.gov/superfund.[1]](http://www.epa.gov/superfund.\[1\])

Every story is some form of the same thing (plug:
[http://cleanupdepue.org](http://cleanupdepue.org)). Company moves into little
town. Residents rejoice in the new jobs. Company leaves when the land is
polluted and used up. Property values plummet, and the town is left with no
jobs and no ability to sell their houses and move out. The western midwest is
in the first part of that story right now, hopefully they'll be smart enough
and not have to see what the second part looks like 30-50 years from now.

[1] Incidentally, I think one of the great weaknesses of our country is that
Congress sits in D.C., a city that is insulated from pretty much every
substantial problem present in the rest of the country. In this particular
context, it's a city that has never seen much industrialization and which has
historically been surrounded by low-intensity agriculture in every direction
(now: vast swaths of suburbia). I think we'd see a different attention to
environmental issues if we relocated Congress to say the industrial New
Jersey/Delaware/Pennsylvania coast...

~~~
johnward
This is basically what happened in the rust belt with steel. Now another
"boom" is happening with fracking. The people still haven't learned. You
wouldn't believe how many gas workers are driving new trucks, buying toys,
etc. I bet very few are putting any of this money in savings. When the
fracking leaves we'll be in the same place we were when the steel mills shut
down. Just waiting for the next economic boom to come.

What are left of the mills are pretty much rusty wastelands but I don't think
quite as much pollution (at least in the ground) as we will see from fracking.

~~~
ssharp
Prophetically, and maybe ironically, fracking service infrastructure in my
hometown, Youngstown, Ohio, is being built on the same land that the steel
mills sat abandoned for decades.

~~~
johnward
I'm on the Ohio border near Pittsburgh. Most of our infrastructure isn't
reusing steel mill but some of it is. The thing I worry about more than the
ground pollution are explosions. We've already seen a few but I don't think
anything like that fertilizer plant yet. I have a pipeline being put in
probably 300 yards from my house and those things scare the shit out of me.

~~~
ssharp
I lost any faith in these companies doing any sort of sound geological work
when a company disposing of fracking water placed their injection well near a
fault and caused a rash of earthquakes in the area the well was built.

I'm not inherently against the idea of increased natural gas production,
including fracking, but the lack of effort put forth by the industry to
recognize and mitigate the risks involved has completely turned me off the
practice.

~~~
rayiner
It costs money to recognize and mitigate the risks. Under the current legal
regime, it costs very little money to let the negative effects happen because
other people will bear the costs of those effects. I.e. it's totally rational
for companies under the existing regime to fail to take adequate precautions.

~~~
specialist
_... because other people will bear the costs of those effects._

Yup.

Environmental protection is an accounting problem. Convert those externalities
into line items on a company's profit & loss statement, voila, no more
exploitation.

------
DanielBMarkham
There's a ton of context that's not included here. For starters:

1) How common was this in PA before fracking started?

2) Are these wells unusable?

3) Is the situation getting better or worse?

4) Is the gas linked to the fracking (the only interesting question that was
mentioned in the article, and the answer is "we don't know")

5) What about other places fracking is occurring? It's not like we're going to
stop fracking everywhere: this is a maturing technology. It'll be used all
over the planet. What's happening elsewhere?

6) Any other studies being done?

7) What's the measured impact on health in the area?

8) Let's not even start on corrleation and causation -- but it needs to be
mentioned, and it's the reason all these other questions are germane.

I'm not trying to be an apologist. These are just sincere questions of import
when reading about fracking news. They're germane to any reporting on the
matter, and they weren't included. If "more details to come" means more random
pieces of trivia that we are then supposed to knit up into our own version of
a drama, filled in by whatever personal biases we have, then this isn't very
useful from a scientific standpoint.

~~~
chernevik
9\. Is there something about the geology of spots where companies like to
drill that causes higher methane levels?

10\. Were the wells sampled chosen for proximity to drill sites? Did the
sampling methodology allow for the possibility that methane levels can spike
without a nearby well?

11\. Was there any relationship between levels and the length of time the well
has been operating? Depth of well?

I'd add that the SA headline isn't exactly a dispassionate summary of the
article.

~~~
johnward
9\. Probably since methane is one of the gases they are attempting to extract.

------
patmcguire
But methane isn't harmful. Also the article doesn't mention the quantities,
but another does. [1] It seems that the most that's been found is about
70mg/L, which is not a lot.

[1] [http://realclearscience.com/blog/2013/06/theres-methane-
in-y...](http://realclearscience.com/blog/2013/06/theres-methane-in-your-
drinking-water-so-what.html)

~~~
refurb
The article does mention the levels, the highest one was 70 mg/L also.

Methane is a pretty inert molecule. It's only a hazard in really high
concentrations where it acts as an asphyxiant. I don't know of any metabolic
toxicity (but maybe there is).

~~~
johnward
It's harmful in the sense that it's flammable also.

------
falk
There's obviously something nefarious going on. Why else would all of these
natural gas companies be paying people off and making them sign confidentially
agreements?

Side-note: Before today I didn't realize how lax the laws on natural gas
companies are. The New York Times has a great graphic on the subject.

"The natural gas industry has exemptions or exclusions from key parts of at
least 7 of the 15 major federal environmental laws designed to protect air and
water from radioactive and hazardous chemicals. Below are the seven laws
listed in the order they were passed."

[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/03/us/20110303-na...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/03/us/20110303-natural-
gas-timeline.html)

------
giardini
Methane is a natural contaminant of groundwater and is commonplace in water
wells. A simple solution is to run the well water into a holding tank; the
methane readily comes out of solution.

Venting methane from well water is less a problem than Joe Mulroy's farts at a
beer-soused Friday night card game. Either will produce a flare if a match is
put to them.

------
danso
The OP is a kind of shallow summation of the details here...first of all, the
study was published in June. Second, it's not the "first step" in determining
the link between fracking in the Marcellus Shale and water contamination...a
previous study by Duke, which the OP references later, documented "systematic
evidence" of such a link.

2013:
[http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/06/19/1221635110.full...](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/06/19/1221635110.full.pdf+html)

2011:
[http://biology.duke.edu/jackson/pnas2011.html](http://biology.duke.edu/jackson/pnas2011.html)

I bring this up not to be pedantic, but to point out that the OP comes off as
that this is new _conclusive_ evidence...it is not. Opponents of fracking
would argue that there are several other studies showing similar data, and
they'd argue that politics/industry has shelved other planned studies. In
other words, it's not just amount or existence of evidence that comes into
play in this debate.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Yeah this is the worst kind of nerd bait. "You guys already know that the oil
companies are evil and will poison people given the chance. Here's a tiny
piece of evidence that you could misinterpret in multiple ways"

To the author's credit, at least he pulled back and didn't do the entire
ranting, hand-waving ritual. I believe that job is being left for online
commenters to complete :)

The funny thing is, without the overriding emotional narrative many people
have, if you just explained what the study says using other terms, most folks
would realize how tenuous and superficial the reporting is. Correlative
research is great, but geesh, it's a tiny, almost minuscule part of actually
accomplishing anything. Most of the time, it's a waste of time. Medical
research, for instance, is full of correlative research that never amounted to
a hill of beans.

~~~
anon1385
>Medical research, for instance, is full of correlative research that never
amounted to a hill of beans.

Yes like smoking being linked with cancer. I'm glad we listened to the
corporate funded libertarians on that one and didn't fall prey to the wishy
washy lefty propaganda and emotive narratives about evil tobacco companies
wanting to make money from killing people. What a ridiculous, politically
motivated caricature that was.

I'd like to point out that the Heartland Institute and Cato still deny the
link between passive smoking and cancer, so it's not like that kind of
lobbying is all in the distant dark past. The very same people writing lies
about tobacco are writing propaganda about fracking. They also think climate
change is a giant marxist conspiracy.

~~~
CamperBob2
_I 'd like to point out that the Heartland Institute and Cato still deny the
link between passive smoking and cancer,_

Honestly, that's because the science is a joke.

It's arguably sufficient to cite the obnoxious nature of secondhand smoke to
outlaw it in public places. If it's constitutional for governments to pass
laws that keep people from blaring their car stereos at 3 AM, then it's
constitutional to pass laws that keep people from polluting the air that other
people have to breathe.

------
refurb
_Samples were collected upstream of any treatment systems and as close to the
water well as possible_

I guess my question would be: does it matter? If you read the article you'll
see that out of the 118 homes that tested positive for methane, only 12 were
above the threshold for immediate remediation.

However, if they sampled the water before it was treated, it doesn't tell you
what the level of the treated water is. Even if the water is simply pumped
into a holding reservoir, that can cause a lot of the methane to outgas from
the water.

------
minikites
I have mixed feelings about fracking. It almost certainly pollutes areas, but
lots of areas in not-United States get polluted currently from the oil
industry:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_issues_in_the_Nig...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_issues_in_the_Niger_Delta#Oil_spills)

In other words, what makes us special? Why are we okay with polluting other
places but by golly we get mad when it happens in our own country?

~~~
rayiner
> Why are we okay with polluting other places but by golly we get mad when it
> happens in our own country?

Because we live here and not there?

~~~
minikites
So it's okay to use oil when it pollutes somewhere else?

I live in the northeast and I find it very interesting when someone has an
anti-fracking bumper sticker on his or her car. It essentially says "oil is
okay as long as there are no problems near me"

------
tibbon
Aside from money (which is pretty motivating), I don't understand why the gas
companies simply continue to deny that there is contamination and that there
are negative outcomes to the environment for doing this (let's put it this
way, its almost certainly not a positive impact. Its unlikely to be a neutral
impact.)

Its like what cigarette companies used to do- just constantly deny what's
completely obvious.

~~~
ars
> let's put it this way, its almost certainly not a positive impact.

No. It's completely positive. Methane has almost no pollution, and far less
CO2 than any other large scale energy source.

The "contamination" is methane in water, which is harmless even if you drank
it, and trivial to remove.

~~~
smky80
Methane's greenhouse gas effect is 20x that of CO2. [0]

\---

[0]
[http://epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/ch4.html](http://epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/ch4.html)

~~~
ars
The quantities we are talking about are pretty minimal though, and definitely
worth the tradeoff with less coal (or oil for that matter).

~~~
smky80
I don't have a source handy, but I remember reading something to effect that
when you figured in all the transportation costs for the fracking fluid and
gas production, it really wasn't so clean.

~~~
ars
Can you look? I would like to read this source please.

------
bitteralmond
For anyone interested, I'd recommend Gasland.

[http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/](http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/)

This "new" evidence of contamination will not end it. People will be paid in
quiet settlements, sell their houses at a fraction of what they paid for them,
and move somewhere else. This will probably continue until the oil/bitumen/gas
is gone.

~~~
thatswrong0
I would not. If you're going to watch Gasland, then you also need to read the
opposing side. There are some parts of it that are incredibly misleading, such
as the tap water on fire.

[http://energyindepth.org/wp-
content/uploads/2010/06/Debunkin...](http://energyindepth.org/wp-
content/uploads/2010/06/Debunking-GasLand.pdf)

[http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-
article/2011/08/01/gasla...](http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-
article/2011/08/01/gasland-producer-misled-viewers-lighted-tap-water)

Edit: Admittedly, these sources suck. Here's a NYTimes article that should
hopefully be more palatable:

[http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/02/24/24greenwire-
groundtr...](http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/02/24/24greenwire-
groundtruthing-academy-award-nominee-gasland-33228.html?pagewanted=all)

~~~
kaonashi
The 'opposing side' is the PR shills hired by the gas industry
([http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alyssa-
carducci/2a/148/889](http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alyssa-carducci/2a/148/889))
([http://heartland.org/alyssa-carducci](http://heartland.org/alyssa-carducci))
([http://energyindepth.org/about/](http://energyindepth.org/about/)).

"Government Relations" is a nice euphemism for propagandist.

In 50 years when the Midwest is a toxic wasteland, many of those responsible
might be able to move to Dubai, but our children and grandchildren are going
to have to somehow live in it.

~~~
hearty778
Number of deaths caused by contaminated groundwater due to fracking: ____?

~~~
kaonashi
Extremely loaded question. There's a documented increase in pollution, but
trying to tie specific deaths to the increase is extremely difficult. We're
talking about macro effects, not micro effects; so e.g. cancer deaths might
increase by 20% or so, but cancer existed before the increase and will
continue exist if fracking is stopped.

------
aooeeu
The boom will be over in a few years, when it is no longer economically
viable. [http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2013/08/well-and-
trul...](http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2013/08/well-and-truly-
fracked.html)

------
ghostdiver
For some european countries gas-fracking is the only way to break out of
russian gas-oil monopoly, even at the cost of devastated environment.

------
taude
A friend lived in Italy for awhile and they had all sorts of earthquakes on
non fault zones. They thought it had to do with fracking. I haven't really
read up much on this....but something else worthy to consider.

Something from Forbes:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/10/17/shale-
fra...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/10/17/shale-fracking-
causes-earthquakes/)

------
kubiiii
What is even worse is that the extracted methane is burnt for heating houses
that would need less to no heating at all with the proper thermal insulation.
Insulation is passive and is put there once for all. It will be tricky to
explain to further generations that we ruined our land while extracting fossil
energy to waste it right away. Same thing applies to Fukushima.

------
aaron695
> Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

No it won't, even if the article showed there was harmful contamination, which
it didn't.

The only thing of interest in the article is Scientific American is resorting
to untrue link baiting titles.

------
jgalt212
This is very much a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

If you don't permit fracking, then you away large sums of money to support the
following regimes:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_gas_fields](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_gas_fields)

If you do, you may be literally sh1tting where you eat.

------
vectorpush
I don't think it's cynical to suggest that groundwater contamination is a non-
issue as far as the gas fracking boom is concerned. We've already seen that
demonstrable contamination in the form of oil spills is legally and
financially viable for energy companies, why would natural gas be any
different?

------
johnward
You know what will end the fracking boom? It won't be politicians. The only
things that will end it are 1) running out of gas/oil 2) the method becomes
too costly to be profitable 3) a much much more profitable way to extract the
resources is discovered.

------
tocomment
Why isn't there a way to track without toxic chemicals?

~~~
mhb
Maybe there is, but it works with the chemicals they currently use. I'm sure
the geological engineers would welcome suggestions.

Additional information:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing)

~~~
johnward
This is interesting because the gas industry defends the fluid as harmless. A
quick look at the ingredients and it doesn't seem that harmless.

\- hydrochloric acid: Concentrated hydrochloric acid (fuming hydrochloric
acid) forms acidic mists. Both the mist and the solution have a corrosive
effect on human tissue, with the potential to damage respiratory organs, eyes,
skin, and intestines irreversibly. Upon mixing hydrochloric acid with common
oxidizing chemicals, such as sodium hypochlorite (bleach, NaClO) or potassium
permanganate (KMnO4), the toxic gas chlorine is produced.

\- polyacrylamide: Concerns have been raised that polyacrylamide used in
agriculture may contaminate food with the nerve toxin acrylamide.

\- Ethylene glycol (the stuff in antifreeze): Ethylene glycol is moderately
toxic with an oral LDLO = 786 mg/kg for humans.[8] The major danger is due to
its sweet taste. Because of that, children and animals are more inclined to
consume large quantities of it than of other poisons. Upon ingestion, ethylene
glycol is oxidized to glycolic acid which is, in turn, oxidized to oxalic
acid, which is toxic. It and its toxic byproducts first affect the central
nervous system, then the heart, and finally the kidneys. Ingestion of
sufficient amounts can be fatal if untreated.

\- glutaraldehyde: As a strong disinfectant, glutaraldehyde is toxic and a
strong irritant

\- Isopropyl alcohol (I think this stuff is in aerosol deodorant and
hairspray): Isopropyl alcohol and its metabolite, acetone, act as central
nervous system (CNS) depressants. Symptoms of isopropyl alcohol poisoning
include flushing, headache, dizziness, CNS depression, nausea, vomiting,
anesthesia, and coma.

~~~
ars
Very cute.

I am not familiar with all of those, but hydrochloric acid, ethylene glycol,
and isopropyl alcohol will decompose to basic elements within days if not
hours.

The are only dangerous if you actually ate the concentrated solution. Put them
in the ground, and they'll be harmless within days - really, days - hours even
for some of them.

I looked up the other two.

Polyacrylamide is used in water treatment. Yes, the water you drink, and it's
used in soft contact lenses, and mixed into soil on farms. The concern is from
the potential 0.05% contamination, and in the small amounts used, plus the
dilution underground 0.05% is nothing.

Oh, and on top of that acrylamide decomposes rapidly in soil so there will be
none left by the time it reaches the surface.

I looked up glutaraldehyde and it decomposes within 48 hours in the presence
of oxygen, and 24 hours to a week without oxygen.

I guess I should thank you for posting this, because if this is the extent of
the worrisome chemicals used then there is nothing to worry about - all them
are completely harmless within days. For some reason I thought they were using
dangerous chemicals, but I guess not.

~~~
matthiasl
Hydrochloric acid is HCl. You write that it "decompose[s] to basic elements".
Are you saying that HCl turns into H_2 and Cl_2, i.e. hydrogen gas and
chlorine gas? Can you explain this reaction?

~~~
ars
No, I don't mean the physical elements. I mean the basic building blocks of
the ground, salt, metal oxides, organics, things like that.

------
four12
Gas-Fraking Boom. Excellent band name.

------
greedo
Correlation does not equal causation.

