
Waste Water from Oil Fracking Injected into Clean Aquifers - dismal2
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/Waste-Water-from-Oil-Fracking-Injected-into-Clean-Aquifers-282733051.html
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anigbrowl
A worthy report, but some valuable context is buried near the end of the
article/TV news report.

 _“We are still comparing the testing of what was the injection water to what
is the tested water that came out of these wells to find out if they were
background levels or whether that’s the result of oil and gas operation, but
so far it’s looking like it’s background,” said James Marshall from the
California Department of Conservation._

So it seems as if no actual contamination of the aquifer has taken place so
far - not an excuse, but far from the environmental disaster you might have
imagined when you heard about 3 billion gallons of waste water.

 _When asked how this could happen in the first place, Marshall said that the
long history of these wells makes it difficult to know exactly what the
thinking was. “When you’re talking about wells that were permitted in 1985 to
1992, we’ve tried to go back and talk to some of the permitting engineers,”
said Marshall. “And it’s unfortunate but in some cases they (the permitting
engineers) are deceased.”_

Again not an excuse, but when you learn that these injection sites were
permitted 20-30 years ago (at a time of lesser technological and environmental
awareness, as well as of lower population and land usage intensity), then it's
not so surprising that some bad decisions could have taken place. On the plus
side, the fact that the injection wells have been in use for oil exploration
for so long and contamination actually seems to be quite limited suggests that
halting further injection and carefully monitoring the surrounding wells may
be sufficient. In other words, an unjustifiable risk but one that seems to
have been identified and halted prior to a serious failure.

~~~
devb
Marshall followed up with “But when those (further) test results come back,
we’ll know for sure”. I think your assessment of the situation is premature at
best.

In any case, the tone for the statements by Marshall that you quoted were, to
me, set with this earlier one:

“There have been past issues where permits were issued to operators that they
shouldn’t be injecting into those zones and so we’re fixing that,”

Could this guy be any more wishy washy?

~~~
anigbrowl
Hence my use of the word 'seems'.

I don't think you can conclude much about someone's tone from a heavily edited
TV news report where people's explanations are chopped up into single
sentences.

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arca_vorago
From another comment in a thread last week about the same subject:

"I'm currently working in the industry in the Permian Basin area (Texas/New
Mexico) and can say that my main concern is environmental. With the fracking
operations, you get a huge load of oil, saltwater, and
sand/crud/junk/chemicals. They truck them to a SWD disposal facility (my
company does PLC's and controls etc for these) which then separate the oil
out. The problem is that, at most of the SWD disposal places I have been too,
disposal consists of pumping the junk/crud/chemical water straight back into
the ground. They say they drill below the Ogallalah aquifer, but what if they
don't? Having actually been a contractor for one of the bigger public oil
companies, I can just say I don't really trust them to do things like that
properly, and my guess is that within a few years we will find out, oh shit,
"Someone poisoned the water hole". That's when T. Boone Pickens will unleash
his high-priced water. I don't thing people realize how close the south is to
major water shortages and is vulnerable to a drought. Hopefully this upcoming
winter will help offset some of that."

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jdhawk
As a part of the Oil and Gas industry, I find this inexcusable. The industry
is going to be a part of international energy picture for the long-term, and
there are "environmentally responsible" ways to economically produce O&G.
These corner cutting idiotic antics hurt the image of the whole industry, and
are becoming more common. Sadly, with the size of the industry, the demand for
the product, and the desire to keep the price low, its difficult to oversee
every action.

~~~
melling
"We're sorry for any inconvenience and we regret..."

Someone should have to pay for this. If the standard excuse is all you need,
there's always going to be someone who is simply going to do the same thing.

~~~
thrownaway2424
Right, that's the fundamental problem with free-market idealism. There is not
an effective limit to the damage that can be done, but there are limits to
liability. Many industries are capable of committing environmental destruction
on large scales, but don't have any assets when the EPA comes around looking
for restitution.

~~~
sp332
I don't see what the free market has to do with this. In a free market, or
really any system that has property rights at all, you can't take or destroy
someone's property without their permission.

Edit: by "can't" I mean it's not allowed - it's a crime. Not that you
physically can't.

~~~
rosser
Tell me again how property rights prevented this from happening.

~~~
sp332
The industry is already regulated, and companies are ignoring the regulations.
This isn't even an approximation to a free market, let alone some ideal.
Adding more regulations isn't going to help if they're not enforced.

~~~
anigbrowl
But how are the companies ignoring the regulations here? It appears that state
permits were granted to drill and use these injection wells ~25-30 years ago
and that the owner/operators have been fully compliant with regulations - if
anything, the failure in this case was a regulatory one, for granting permits
that should not have been issued in the first place.

~~~
sp332
So, who is responsible to pay up if a resident wants restitution for the
pollution in their well? The company or the state?

~~~
anigbrowl
On the limited information available here, if the company had not been
breaking the terms of the permit then I would certainly consider my dispute to
be with the state.

~~~
anigbrowl
Looking at this later I see I worded it badly - I should have said 'as long as
the company hasn't been breaking the terms of the permit.' I might have
mistakenly given the impression that they had done so, whereas in reality I
have no reason to think they did.

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clumsysmurf
Some wisdom from Mexico:

[http://www.propublica.org/article/message-from-
mexico-u.s.-i...](http://www.propublica.org/article/message-from-
mexico-u.s.-is-polluting-water-it-may-someday-need-to-drink)

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eyeareque
Why in the world would it ever be okay to inject contaminated waste water into
the ground? That sounds just plain stupid.

~~~
cnvogel
Oh, but that's the whole idea of fracking.

You inject (not necessarily polluted on purpose from the start, but it will be
at some point if reused a few times) water under high pressure into the ground
to break up sediment, releasing a mineral resource. Often: Natural gas, or
some sludge high in oil content. Sometimes also done for certain metals, then
it's called "in situ leach".

Problem is: At some point you'll have accumulated just too much polluted water
than what you could reasonably store as barrels stacked up in your parking
lot, or just dump into a nearby lake or river.

The amount of waste generated it not really surprising, probably one should
have considered this environmental impact before allowing companies to start
these operations.

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fataliss
This is a shame. But as usual, people start caring about environment very
late. They should have had that in mind right off the bat when they started
using this technology.Sadly back in those days all was going good, nobody
cared. Now when it becomes critical, suddenly people start getting scared.
Well, too late guys. How many screw up we will need to stop being late?

~~~
refurb
Did anyone read the article? The state gave the company permission to do the
well injection of waste. The state screwed up!

~~~
Ygg2
And I'd bet the oil companies lobbied for 'deep' aquifers to be deemed usable
for fracking.

~~~
refurb
Massive conspiracy! I think you overestimate the impact of lobbying.

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melling
I can't actually get the article on my iPhone. I keep getting spammed or
redirected to another ad page or to download an app.

~~~
elorant
Try the printed version:
[http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?expire=&title=W...](http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?expire=&title=Waste+Water+from+Oil+Fracking+Injected+into+Clean+Aquifers+|+NBC+Bay+Area&urlID=534261522&action=cpt&partnerID=1127095&cid=282733051&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcbayarea.com%2Finvestigations%2FWaste-
Water-from-Oil-Fracking-Injected-into-Clean-Aquifers-282733051.html)

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ryandrake
I must have missed the memo on the terminology change. So, now, waste is
"injected" into the environment, not "dumped"? Guess that does sound better.

~~~
kaybe
It's obviously a different process.

