Water Abuse in the Fracking Process

- by Alex Lotor­to, Ener­gy Jus­tice Network

Water is used in shale gas devel­op­ment from cra­dle to grave, how­ev­er, most peo­ple don’t think about it beyond the issues of ground­wa­ter contamination.

Procur­ing and bring­ing raw mate­ri­als like sil­i­ca sand, steel, cement, and frack­ing chem­i­cals to the well loca­tions requires an incred­i­ble amount of man­u­fac­tur­ing, trans­porta­tion, and plant fuel, which are water inten­sive fuels to produce.

Each well requires 5–9 mil­lion gal­lons of water to be fracked. Water is also used to cre­ate oil-based drilling muds that are inject­ed down­hole when the well is first drilled to lubri­cate the drill bit. For pipelines, the most preva­lent way infra­struc­ture is test­ed for integri­ty is hydro­sta­t­ic test­ing, where water is used to pres­sur­ize the lines and test for leaks.

Water with­drawals are approved by states and in some cas­es by fed­er­al riv­er com­mis­sions. Because the water is com­bined with frack­ing flu­id, sand, chem­i­cals, and under­ground con­t­a­m­i­nants, much of it nev­er returns to the water cycle. In fact, between 50 to 80 per­cent of the water used in frack­ing remains deep under­ground, for­ev­er entombed.

In 2012, the Susque­han­na Riv­er Basin Com­mis­sion, com­prised of gov­er­nors’ rep­re­sen­ta­tives from PA, MD, and New York, as well as the White House, approved a three mil­lion gal­lon per day water with­draw­al in Jer­sey Shore, PA that required the removal and relo­ca­tion of 32 mobile home res­i­dent fam­i­lies.

Drought con­di­tions in Texas’ Bar­nett Shale and Cal­i­for­ni­a’s Mon­ter­rey Shale regions force res­i­den­tial, com­mer­cial, and agri­cul­tur­al con­sumers to com­pete with the needs of frack­ing com­pa­nies.

If well cas­ings fail or fis­sures com­mu­ni­cate with ground­wa­ter sup­plies, con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of rur­al landown­ers’ drink­ing water can occur. In 2009, 18 water sup­plies in Dimock, Penn­syl­va­nia were found by the Penn­syl­va­nia DEP to have been con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by drilling mud, frack­ing chem­i­cals, and methane. Three remain­ing fam­i­lies are suing the driller, Cabot Oil & Gas, for dam­ages and are going to fed­er­al jury tri­al this Novem­ber with the sup­port of Ener­gy Jus­tice Network.

Waste streams from the drilling cre­ate water con­t­a­m­i­na­tion issues. Increas­ing­ly, the indus­try brags about “recy­cling” water, or “ben­e­fi­cial reuse,” which entails fil­ter­ing the drilling mud and frack­ing waste through an accor­dion press, sim­i­lar to cheese­cloth, to remove the solids. This allows the remain­ing liq­uid to be reused with more water in future frack jobs. What the indus­try does­n’t tell you is that the solids are sent to munic­i­pal land­fills that dis­charge their leachate into sur­face waters.

Anoth­er pop­u­lar way of dis­pos­ing of liq­uid waste from frack­ing is deep under­ground injec­tion wells, known as Class II wells, per­mit­ted by the EPA. This method of dis­pos­al has been linked to earth­quakes by Ohio state geol­o­gists because the “slick water” as it’s known by the indus­try, can lubri­cate faults.

Final­ly, water is inten­sive­ly used by gas pow­er plants that are being built at an alarm­ing rate to gen­er­ate steam and cool the plant. Cool­ing water is dis­charged into sur­face water and can cause dis­rup­tion to local ecosys­tems that are sen­si­tive to tem­per­a­ture like trout fish­eries. The con­sump­tion of water can also com­pete with the needs of local water con­sumers in times of drought, when util­i­ties may be required to raise rates.