Making the Case that HVHHS Gas Drilling will transform our land into industrial tracts, to extract the last drops of petroleum
Long Term Cumulative Community Impact of the Massive Industrialization of High Volume Horizontal Hydrofracture Shale Gas Drilling
A. For 5 minute to half hour introductions to "fracking" & how it’s different from and more risky than "conventional" drilling, see presentations by James Northrup and Anthony Ingraffea(#1 below, especially highlighted ones).
B. For point-by-point answers to industry arguments favoring shale gas extraction, one of the most thorough hour presentations is Stephen Cleghorn's (#1 below).
C. For the social effects on communities where thousands of shale gas wells have been drilled, see the presentation of a three-year study of Bradford PA by Dr. Simona Perry (see #8 below).
D. For a financial analysis of shale gas reserves, economic viability, "energy independence" and the "drilling treadmill," watch Deborah Rogers’ (see #10b) presentation.
1. Understanding the technology of HVHHS Gas Drilling (including how it differs from previous petroleum extraction):
Anthony Ingraffea
· Drill here, Drill Now Screws the Grandkids. http://un-naturalgas.org/weblog/2010/04/tony-ingraffea-drill-here-drill-now-screws-the-grandkids-three-part-video-presentation/ April 17, 2010. Three parts (each about 25 min.)
· Disposal Wells: A Solution for Marcellus Waste? http://shaleshockmedia.org/2010/05/29/disposal-wells-a-solution-for-marcellus-waste/ May 3, 2010, Ithaca, NY. (Total length: 123 min) Introduction: (approx. 4 min.); Bill Kappel, USGS, Water Resources Division: (approx. 11 min.); Rachel Treichler, Attorney from Hammondsport (approx. 12 min.); Dr. Tony Ingraffea, Cornell University Engineering Dept. (approx. 16 min.); Q & A: Part I: (approx. 31 min.) /Q & A: Part II: (approx. 24 min.) / Q & A: Part III: (approx. 25 min.)
· Siegel & Ingraffea Debate on Hydrofracking. http://shaleshockmedia.org/2011/04/11/professors-siegel-and-ingraffea-debate-on-hydrofracking/ February 20, 2011. SUNY Cortland, NY. Prof. Anthony Ingraffea, engineer fracture expert, Prof. Donald Siegel hydrogeologist, Syracuse University, Intro. (9 min) / Dr. Siegel: (15 min) / Dr. Ingraffea: (15 min) / Q &A Part I : (40 min) / Q & A Part II (40 min)
· http://shaleshockmedia.org/2011/01/30/3-tony-ingraffea-sautnersjosh-fox-cumulative-environmental-effects-of-gas-drilling/ Ingraffea’s response to Terry Engelder’s pro-drilling statement in a debate. (About 30 min.) ©
James Northrup:
· http://vimeo.com/14472351 (4:45 min.) Brief introduction to high-volume slick- water horizontal hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) gas drilling method and some problems in NY. ©
· http://vimeo.com/14295502 (27 min.) - More Complete Introduction to high-volume slick-water horizontal hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) gas drilling method and some problems in NY. ©
· http://my.brainshark.com/Horizontal-Hydrofracking-of-Shale-Gas-in-New-York-162908032 Horizontal Hydrofracking of Shale Gas in New York - PowerPoint with Northrup’s voiceover- more in-depth overview of drilling and problems. (42 min, 57 slides) ©
· http://my.brainshark.com/Fracking-Shale-Gas-Industrialization-Video-753892639 - Northrup explains the ways shale hydrofracture gas drilling and production is massive industrialization. (20 min 4 sec , 28 slides) ©
· http://my.brainshark.com/Prohibit-Fracking-In-Your-Town-872341386 (8 min, 16 slides) Apr 01, 2011©
· http://my.brainshark.com/Prohibit-Fracking-Through-Zoning-926534928 (5 min., 31 slides) Apr 11, 2011 ©
Ø © Note that a DVD (produced with Ingraffea’s and Northrup’s permission) is available, which includes the videos marked ©.
Email your request to .
Ø Donations to cover production costs ($5) will be gratefully received: checks may be made out to Concerned Citizens Ohio and sent to G. Fischer, POB 133, Hiram OH 44234
· Dr. J. Stephen Cleghorn: "The Case for a Moratorium on Drilling the Marcellus Shale in PA"
http://go.to/stopmarcellus : "...An organic farmer in western Pennsylvania assembles the case for a moratorium on unconventional drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale.” Well-documented, clearly stated description of the entire process & excellent response to all the claims made by industry (1 hour)
2. Learning about risks from where drilling has been done:
a. Bradford County PA: http://www.bradfordcountypa.org/Natural-Gas.asp?specifTab=2 active map showing the progression of gas wells drilled between 2009-2011 in Bradford County.
b. Learning from Arkansas. http://www.arpanel.org/content/Arkansas%20in%20the%20Balance%20Exec%20Summary.pdf Arkansas in the Balance (Summary report by the Arkansas Public Policy Panel February 2011) “Concentrated Impacts. A well pad requires clearing 3 to 10 acres of land, though multiple wells can be drilled from a single pad. Roads and pipelines leading to every well require additional land to be cleared, often causing erosion on the steep slopes of the Ozarks. Each well requires about 3 million gallons of water, and the chemicals used in the process are not released to the public. The impact of a single well on land, water, property and health may be small, but the cumulative impact of 7,000 wells in close proximity—and many more to come—will be huge if proper measures are not taken to mitigate these impacts.”
· This report cites data from gas and Oil drilling in CO, WV, NM, PA, NY, TX and WY. 63.134.196.109/documents/RiskAssessmentNaturalGasExtraction.pdf “Over the last decade, operators in the natural gas industry have developed highly sophisticated methods and materials for the exploration and production of methane from unconventional reservoirs. In spite of the technological advances made to date, these activities pose significant chemical and biological hazards to human health and ecosystem stability. If future impacts may be inferred from recent historical performance, then: Between two and four percent of shale gas well projects in New York will pollute local ground-water over the short term. Serious regulatory violation rates will exceed twelve percent.
· More than one of every six shale gas wells will leak fluids to surrounding rocks and to the surface over the next century.
· Each gas well pad, with its associated access road and pipeline, will generate a sediment discharge of approximately eight tons per year into local waterways, further threatening federally endangered mollusks and other aquatic organisms.
· Construction of access roads and pipelines will fragment field and forest habitats, further threatening plants and animals which are already species of concern.
· Some chemicals in ubiquitous use for shale gas exploration and production, or consistently present in flowback fluids, constitute human health and environmental hazards when present at extremely low concentrations. Potential exposure effects for humans will include poisoning of susceptible tissues, endocrine disruption syndromes, and elevated risks for certain cancers.
· Exposures of gas field workers and neighbors to toxic chemicals and noxious bacteria are exacerbated by certain common practices, such as air/foam-lubricated drilling and the use of impoundments for flowback fluids. These methods, along with the intensive use of diesel-fueled equipment, will degrade air quality and may cause a recently described “down-winder’s syndrome” in humans, livestock and crops.
· State officials have not effectively managed oil and gas exploration and production in New York, evidenced by thousands of undocumented or improperly abandoned wells and numerous incidents of soil and water contamination. Human health impacts from these incidents appear to include abnormally high death rates from glandular and reproductive system cancers in men and women. Improved regulations and enhanced enforcement may reasonably be anticipated to produce more industry penalties, but not necessarily better industry practices, than were seen in the past.”
c. http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/5839/?mid=54 “HERE, THEN, are the environmental precepts violated by hydrofracking: 1) Environmental degradation of the commons should be factored into the price structure of the product (full-cost accounting), whose true carbon footprint—inclusive of all those diesel truck trips, blowouts, and methane leaks—requires calculation (life-cycle analysis). 2) Benefit of the doubt goes to public health, not the things that threaten it, especially in situations where catastrophic harm—aquifer contamination with carcinogens—is unremediable (the Precautionary Principle). 3) There is no away.”
3. Auxiliary infrastructure
a. Pipelines
i. http://www.naturalgas.org/naturalgas/transport.asp “Transmission pipes can measure anywhere from 6 to 48 inches in diameter, depending on their function. . . .Most major interstate pipelines are between 24 and 36 inches in diameter. The actual pipeline itself, commonly called 'line pipe', consists of a strong carbon steel material, engineered to meet standards set by the American Petroleum Institute (API). In contrast, some distribution pipe is made of highly advanced plastic, because of the need for flexibility, versatility and the ease of replacement.” http://www2.bupipedream.com/news/physicist-warns-of-fracking-s-radioactive-side-effects-1.2706559#.TuEG85jO620 “Marvin Resnikoff, a physicist and former professor from University at Buffalo . . . focused on a sometimes less-often-discussed aspect of fracking, which is that it can produce radioactive byproducts that enter into the earth and public drinking water supplies.”
ii. http://rwma.com/RWMA_Comments_rDSGEIS “The author of these comments has had 20 years experience examining NORM in oil and gas exploration and production in Louisiana, Texas, Kentucky, Mississippi and more recently in New York State. . . .During production, the brine is extremely radioactive, as the DEC DSGEIS has shown. The radium plates out as scale within the production pipes or joints, the separator, the feeder lines to the condensate tanks and the condensate tanks themselves. We focus on radium because radium, similar to calcium, concentrates in bone and can give rise to leukemia. . . . .In addition to radioactive materials, some toxic chemicals, such as arsenic and mercury will also be present during gas production. The DSGEIS does not discuss the hazard quotient and risk factor associated with these chemicals. Calculations we have done on the arsenic impact due to actual natural gas production in southern Texas show that the hazard quotient is high, greater than 9, and the risk factor is high, greater than 8 in 10,000, requiring a cleanup of a site. . . . .Within the Marcellus Shale formation, the radioactive concentrations are 20 to 25 times background. However, DEC claims that “black shale typically contains trace levels of uranium and gamma ray logs indicate that this is true of the Marcellus shale.”3 Based on gamma ray logs, a study by the USGS and statements in the DSGEIS, we differ strongly with the DEC that the concentrations are “trace levels.”. . . .Thus, the wet cuttings that go to municipal landfills will be radioactive, due to the contained drilling fluid...In addition to radioactive materials; we are concerned with certain toxic materials brought to the surface. Gas formations contain arsenic, mercury and, of course, hydrocarbons. These have the potential to enter groundwater systems, at concentrations that present a cancer risk to residents. Once these carcinogens enter groundwater, they are difficult to remove. In Texas, the risk level due to arsenic has exceeded the EPA cleanup risk standard, 10-4. Radium scale buildup in gas equipment. During production, radium dissolved in water, is brought to the surface. Scale, radium sulfate, plates out on production pipe surfaces. . . . . For DEC and DOH to grasp the magnitude of the problem, we provide one example. At one natural gas well in Texas, 388 pipe joints were pulled after 5 years service. Exposure levels exceeded 50 μR/h in 55% of the 30 foot joints (max, 150 μR/h) 38% were < 50 μR/h and 7% were free of NORM. Hundreds of pipes at each gas well will be contaminated with radium scale. If thousands of gas wells are drilled in New York State, how will DEC and DOH have the resources to regulate the industry and track these contaminated pipes? In our experience, oil and gas producing pipes with high external exposure levels have been “donated” to city governments for playgrounds in Texas, or to farmers for use in animal corrals in Texas and Kentucky. They have been cut up with oxyacetylene torches and welded to fit their use. In the process, children and farmers have been directly exposed to gamma, and inhaled radium. Workers at pipeyards that cleaned pipes have inhaled radium-contaminated dust and have developed cancer. . . . . Workers at, and residents near, pipeyards that clean pipe scale have an additional risk from inhaling radioactive dust. Based on our experience, the DOH regulations are too lax, as we discuss below.”
iii. Compressor Stations http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW4zSayf9O4 Video comparing the industry ads of compressors and the typical compressor; using diesel to run 24 hours a day, noisy, leaking emissions---the gas pipelines will require one every 40-100 miles or perhaps one for every 20-100 wells. http://www.naturalgas.org/naturalgas/transport.asp “To ensure that the natural gas flowing through any one pipeline remains pressurized, compression of this natural gas is required periodically along the pipe. This is accomplished by compressor stations, usually placed at 40 to 100 mile intervals along the pipeline.”
iv. Valves and monitoring stations. http://www.naturalgas.org/naturalgas/transport.asp “Interstate pipelines include a great number of valves along their entire length...These large valves can be placed every 5 to 20 miles along the pipeline, and are subject to regulation by safety codes . . . . In addition to compressing natural gas to reduce its volume and push it through the pipe, metering stations are placed periodically along interstate natural gas pipelines. These stations allow pipeline companies to monitor the natural gas in their pipes.”
v. Pipeline incidents. http://primis.phmsa.dot.gov/comm/reports/safety/SigPSI.html?nocache=4663 Table showing “significant pipeline incidents.” Note that while the industry talks about “needing to practice” to improve, over the past 20 years, the average number of incidents has stayed at about 280/year, with a notable rise in 2010, after a number of years of lower rates.
4. Water impacts. 2,000,000-5,000,000 gallons of water used for each fracking of each well; each well may need to be fracked up to 10 times in its life; thousands of wells planned for Ohio, thousands already drilled in PA, WV, and many western states. See below for the water contamination and the fact that, water used for fracking cannot presently be made potable. James Northrup & Anthony Ingraffea also make this point. http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/23656-1
“Currently there are 40 horizontally-fractured wells in Ohio – and 4,000 more expected in the next four years.”
5. Waste
a. Water contamination
i. http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/frackingFINALweb.pdf “Why Accelerating Risky Drilling Threatens America’s Water.” July 2010.
ii. http://static.ewg.org/reports/2011/fracking/cracks_in_the_facade.pdf Cracks in the Façade. 25 Years Ago, EPA Linked “Fracking” to Water Contamination Dusty Horwitt, Senior Counsel, Environmental Working Group August 3, 2011
iii. www.canadians.org/water/documents/fracking/factsheet-1110.pdf
iv. http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/methane-contamination-of-drinking-water-accompanying-gas-well-drilling