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A FEW FACTS ABOUT GAS DRILLING |
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Written by James Herman
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Thursday, 08 January 2009 |
A FEW FACTS ABOUT GAS DRILLING
- A FEW FACTS ABOUT GAS DRILLING
- • In 1999 there were only four horizontal wells in the
- Barnett shale, but by the end of 2004, there were 744.
- New York State has many more ready to drill; Otsego
- County has a large number ready to go. The Barnett
- shale is most like Otsego's Marcellus shale.
- • Fluids pumped into shale can have pressures of
- 4,000 to 8,000 psi. At the high end this is enough to
- crack shale as much as 3,000 feet; over half a mile long.
- These fluids can migrate into water supplies.
- • Naturally Occuring Radioactive Material (NORM)
- found in the Marcellus shale is high and will be
- expelled in mass from the wells.
- • Most shale gas wells must be fractured more than
- once and many times in the life span of the gas well.
- • More than 2,500 chemicals are used in the oil and
- gas industry today. Hundreds of these chemicals will
- be used in each well. Some may make it into our
- drinking water.
- • The chemicals used have a wide diversity of
- toxicities and biodegradability.
- • Some oilfield chemicals are endrcrine disruptors.
- Endocrine disruptors can lead to genetic mutations
- and cancer. http://www.endocrinedisruption.com
- • 1,549 oil/gas spills were reported by the Colorado
- Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in the period
- between January 2003 and March 2008. Spilled products
- included: crude oil/condensate, produced water and
- "other" products. The other products included diesel fuel,
- glycol, amine, lubricating oil, hydraulic fracturing fluids,
- drilling muds, other chemicals, and natural gas leaks.
- • The oil and gas industry enjoys sweeping
- exemptions from provisions in the major federal
- environmental statutes intended to protect human
- health and the environment. These statutes
- include the:
- • Comprehensive Environmental Response,
- Compensation, and Liability Act
- • Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
- • Safe Drinking Water Act
- • Clean Water Act
- • Clean Air Act
- • National Environmental Policy Act
- • Toxic Release Inventory under the Emergency
- Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act
- (do not have to disclose chemicals to public)
- • Hydraulic fracturing is not completely predictable as stated
- in Schlumberger's publication OILFIELD REVIEW (2006) in the
- article The Source for Hydraulic Fracture Characterization;
- p.44:
- "….Geologic discontinuities such as fractures and
- faults can dominate fracture geometry in a way
- that makes predicting hydraulic fracture behavior
- difficult. Clearly, the exploration and production
- industry still has much to learn about hydraulic
- fractures."
- • New York state oil and gas regulations as compared with other
- states are not adequate:
- Waste pits provided in 6 NYCRR 554.1 do not address
- drilling fluids. Waste pits that contain drilling fluids do
- not have to be lined, cleaned up and wastes disposed
- of in a permitted facility, or even monitored for potential
- seepage into groundwater sources.
- • Setbacks for public water sources provided in 6 NYCRR 553.2
- is 50 feet. Contamininants can travel considerably farther than
- 50 feet. Colorado is currently considering a buffer zone of 300
- feet based on incidents in Colorado. See: http://cogcc.state.co.us/
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