Poorly constructed shale gas wells, not hydraulic fracturing, are to blame for contaminated water in Pennsylvania and Texas, says a study by scientists at Duke University and four other schools.
The study was published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Researchers analyzed the gas content of more than 130 drinking water wells over the Marcellus shale formation in Pennsylvania and Texas' Barnett shale. They found contamination in eight clusters of wells.
Hydraulic fracturing extracts gas from deep underground. The suspicion has been that methane -- the main component of natural gas -- from fracking or horizontal drilling had migrated up into drinking water aquifers.
The new study appears to rule that out. Instead it found, in four contaminated clusters, that the methane leaked at shallow depths from faulty rings of cement around gas-well shafts. Three more clusters suggested methane leaked through bad well casings.
While drilling has contaminated water, the scientists say, most of the causes can be prevented.
The researchers used noble gases such as helium to trace methane emissions because they mix with natural gas but aren't affected by microbes or oxidation. Measuring the noble gases determined the source of the methane and how it reaches drinking water aquifers.
Scientists from Duke, Ohio State University, Stanford University, Dartmouth College and the University of Rochester took part in the peer-reviewed study. Funding came from the National Science Foundation and Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment.
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9 comments:
Thank you for linking the actual study to your article. It allowed me to look at the actually data in a table format and to see exactly how they performed the study.
I was glad to see that fracking itself was not the problem and that even with faulty well equipment that P was always < 2 parts per thousand and in most cases significantly below that.
The water is still polluted. Errr......The study says that it wasn't the fracking itself, but that it was the fracking well. That is similar to saying the BP Gulf spill wasn't related to drilling.
The study might make more sense to you if you knew what "P" represented.
(If your comment was sarcasm, mea culpa, and the P is what FrackCo says is rain on our legs)
This "study" is disingenuous at best. 130 wells were studied and 8 "clusters" were discovered that were to causes other than fracking. Yet there is absolutely no mention of what exactly a "cluster" is nor does it mention how many of those 130 wells were impacted - all of which wouldn't have happened without the apparently yet not perfected hydraulic fracturing method of obtaining natural gas.
I'm not at all reassured with nonsense such as this study exhibits.
Really now Methane Gas you say? How about the sulfuric acid which is pumped into the newly drilled holes? Sulfuric Acid is actually pumped at varying intervals as the drill head is extended down through the earth then horizontally into the earth.
This stage of the process leaves huge amounts of acid residue in the earth. The fracturing stage actually pushes the acid residue out into the newly fractured rock. This is where it enters the drinking water.You see; the earth has the lines of stone all the way down there called fissure cracks; normal stuff. The acid migrates; from the pressure; into the substaight where the water is.
This is really how the water is poisoned.
Once again, for people who have already made up their minds, not amount of scientific evidence to the contrary will convince them! That's because prejudice in all of it's forms, is irrational, and is unaffected by facts.
Let me see how this works: The good old USA tightens its emission control requirements. Cost go up. More product will be produced in China due to increased costs in USA. China refuses to reduce carbon emissions, therefore tightening controls in USA actually increases worldwide emissions.
Doesn't this actually make global warming more likely?
How about loosening emissions controls in USA so fewer products (and thus fewer carbon emissions) are made in China.
Let me see how this works: The good old USA tightens its emission control requirements. Cost go up. More product will be produced in China due to increased costs in USA. China refuses to reduce carbon emissions, therefore tightening controls in USA actually increases worldwide emissions.
Doesn't this actually make global warming more likely?
How about loosening emissions controls in USA so fewer products (and thus fewer carbon emissions) are made in China.
Wow. China. Now there's a place I want to move to. (not). Thank God for The EPA.
Regulators should require frackers to carry sufficient liability insurance to compensate people when frackers poison their ground water.
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