GAS DRILLING: THE FINAL WAKE-UP CALL

GAS DRILLING: THE FINAL WAKE-UP CALL
By Gusti Bogok, with assistance from Carl Arnold

The Marcellus shale is a vast methane-rich rock formation that lies 6,000 to 9,000 feet below the Catskill Mountains, the Delaware River Valley and the Allegany Plateau, spanning parts of Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, West Virginia and Ohio. Until recently, gas extraction from shale rock was not economically viable. But soaring energy prices and Halliburton’s 1949 development of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques have facilitated an upsurge in methane mining throughout the United States. Companies such as Halliburton, Cabot Oil & Gas, Encana Gas & Oil, XTO, Chesapeake Energy and others are salivating at the trough, aggressively promoting this unconventional process. They tout it not only as a potential boom in tough economic times, but also as a way to produce a “clean” transition fuel to satisfy our nation’s growing energy demand while reducing dependence on foreign fossil fuels.

Closer inspection of the consequences of this form of drilling, in Texas, Pennsylvania and other states where gas drilling is underway, reveals quite a different story.

Clean fuel myth

Although natural gas may burn cleaner than coal, the process of extracting it is highly destructive and anything but clean. Hydrofracking involves injecting water, sand and hundreds of mostly toxic chemicals at extremely high pressure deep into the ground and setting off explosions horizontally to release the gas embedded in the rock. Each well may be fractured up to about 18 times, and each fracking requires two to nine million gallons of water, as well as 600 to 800 truck trips to deliver fresh water to a well pad and hundreds more truck trips to move the contaminated fracking fluids offsite.

Much of the contamination comes from naturally occurring chlorides, heavy metals and radioactive materials — in New York State, notably radon, boron and uranium — released from the shale and brought up with the mud and wastewater. But the “produced water” also contains fracking fluids — tens of thousands of gallons of industrial chemicals, including known carcinogens and endocrine disruptors, such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and zylene.

Approximately 30% to 70% of the fluids, pumped at 4,000 to 8,000 pounds pressure, remain underground, allowing contaminants to seep through both existing fissures and those created by what the industry terms “mini-seismic events. This toxic brew finds its way into underground aquifers, rivers, streams, surrounding landscapes and agricultural lands.

Underground toxic plumes in various parts of the US have already spread in unknowable directions at unknowable rates. One plume under Newtown Creek (below Brooklyn/Queens) has been a scandal since 1977. Another in Sublette County, Wyoming, became known shortly after drilling began there. By November 2008 it had spread 28 miles.

There are barely enough wastewater plants to handle even present waste, let alone the many billions of gallons of contaminated waste that would result if drilling proceeds at the pace that corporations intend. Present wastewater facilities are unable to filter hydrofracking waste. There are only two processes that might work—reverse osmosis and dialysis, but facilities capable of these two processes are extraordinarily expensive to build and require exorbitant amounts of energy to operate. Even if treatment plants were built and worked as intended, the problem of how to deal with disposal of the filtered toxics would remain.

Air pollution and accidents

Gas drilling emits greenhouse gases and ground ozone that have a toxic footprint with about a 200-mile radius. Harmful diesel fumes and noise are emitted round-the-clock by truck traffic, compressors, and other equipment. Despite claims of drilling safety by the gas industry and New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), occurrences of groundwater contamination, explosions, accidental spills and cases of inflammable tap water are mounting. Recent Marcellus shale drilling in Dimock, Pennsylvania resulted in contamination of nine private drinking water wells. A single gas well in North Brookfield, NY blew out 11 drinking water wells. In the small rural town of Dish, Texas, the ozone level has surpassed congested urban levels and asthma and lung disorders are on the rise.

Economic boon

The argument that gas drilling will boost our ailing economy is highly debatable. Many studies of gas drilling’s economic effects have been based on input-output (“economic impact”) analysis, which does not account for embedded costs of environmental damage, general wear and tear to infrastructure, health effects, and the negative impacts of pollution on property values and key industries, such as tourism, hunting, fishing, wine-making and farming.*

While gas and oil companies anticipate receiving free federal stimulus funding for energy production — a questionable subsidy for a polluting energy source at best — the industry further enjoys the benefit of full exemption from liability thanks to the Cheney/Bush 2005 Energy Policy Act, which gutted the strict environmental regulations that had protected US citizens for over 30 years.

For the rest of us the financial toll would be astronomical. Clean-up costs, damage to roads and infrastructure, loss of water for homes and farms, healthcare costs for those exposed to toxic chemicals in their drinking water or affected by harmful fumes — these burdens would be shouldered by local municipalities and individuals. In short, profits would be privatized and costs would be shifted to the taxpayer, including the cost of billions of gallons of fresh water that industry could freely expropriate from our rivers, streams, lakes and aquifers.

Clearly, the risks of gas drilling to New York State are unacceptable. With thousands of gas wells on the horizon, hydrofracking could turn the Southern Tier into an industrial wasteland. We, as residents who value our natural landscapes, our health, indeed our very survival, must not allow this to happen. Instead, we must join with the many environmental and civic groups calling for a statewide ban on hydrofracking. The massive funding wasted on building an elaborate infrastructure for yet another outmoded, toxic and finite fossil fuel resource would be more wisely invested in conservation education, as well as clean, renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar and geothermal. In this way, New York State could lead the way in preparing for inevitable declines in present fuel resources, catch up with our friends in Europe and Japan, and help mitigate the worst effects of climate change.

* Unanswered Questions About the Economic Impact of Gas Drilling in the Marcellus Shale: Don’t Jump to Conclusions, Jannette M. Barth, PhD, March 22, 2010
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Get involved: sign the Petition to Ban Drilling in New York State
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/NY-Statewide-Ban-On-Natural-Gas-Drilling

Learn more:
http://un-naturalgas.org
http://www.newyorkwater.org
http://chenangogreens.org
http://damascuscitizens.org
http://waterunderattack,com
http://delawarerivrkeeper.org