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| Mining for methane... |
Fracking involves shooting incredibly high-pressure "fluids" into oil and methane gas deposits to fracture the rock around the deposit and release the gas.
In a recent documentary film, a filmmaker shows how a recently-drilled Pennsylvania town reports that "residents are able to light their drinking water on fire." Wish we could find a picture of this!
Actually, here's a picture of people lighting water on fire, at the Sundance Film Fest web page for the movie. The film won the 2010 Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize for a Documentary and profiled fracking in the U.S. The movie is called Gasland, more at bottom of page.*
The water-on-fire snippet makes a good film and great publicity; EPA is now charged with finding out what it means in fact, if people can light their water on fire after fracking. Is that the chemicals used in fracking? Is that methane somehow escaping into groundwater? Is it some 3rd, 4th, or 5th option we hadn't heard of?
Fracking is, arguably, economically important -- possibly critical -- for the United States, as the companies doing the fracking will point out. There are also attendant and significant environmental and human health issues with shooting the chemicals into the land and water table.
EPA wants to know, well, EPA pretty much has to find out by public demand: what the *bleep* is in the fluid that does the fracking?
What the *bleep* is in the fluid that does the fracking?
The congressionally-mandated hydraulic fracturing study that EPA is under public pressure to get underway will look at the potential adverse impact of fracking on drinking water and public health in the United States. The agency is under a tight deadline to provide initial results by the end of 2012. The study depends on timely access to detailed information about fracturing methods.
Here's a list of chemicals used in a recent fracturing event in Pennsylvania: Fracturing List of Chemicals.
Give Marcellus credit for releasing this list. (List is compiled from MSDS data, which is great, but some trade secrets can be held back. For more on that see previous post on MSDS data.)
Halliburton
Halliburton is the world's 2nd-largest oilfield services corp. It employs over 50,000 people. HQ is in Dubai, UAE of all places, with offices in the North Belt office in Houston, Texas; the company remains incorporated in the United States.
Halliburton's major business segment is the Energy Services Group (ESG). ESG provides technical products and services for petroleum and natural gas exploration and production. Halliburton's former subsidiary, KBR, is a major construction company of refineries, oil fields, pipelines, and chemical plants. Halliburton announced on April 5, 2007 that it had finally broken ties with KBR, which had been its contracting, engineering and construction unit as a part of the company for 44 years -- and had been the brunt of terrible and presumably untenable Public Relations.
The post-KBR era isn't exactly winning warm-fuzzies in the hearts of the public. For instance, what Tech Eye has to say - although as left as usual - isn't going to make readers feel very good. Happy to share that link, though, largely for the links used in the article: a good resource if you want to know more.
What happened in this case
On September 9, 2010, EPA reached out to nine leading national and regional hydraulic fracturing service providers – BJ Services, Complete Production Services, Halliburton, Key Energy Services, Patterson-UTI, RPC, Inc., Schlumberger, Superior Well Services, and Weatherford – seeking information on:
- the chemical composition of fluids used in the hydraulic fracturing process
- data on the impacts of the chemicals on human health and the environment
- standard operating procedures at their hydraulic fracturing sites
- the locations of sites where fracturing has been conducted
More information on the subpoena and mandatory request for information on Halliburton’s hydraulic fracturing operations: http://www.epa.gov/hydraulicfracturing
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*About the movie Gasland:
"The largest domestic natural gas drilling boom in history has swept across the United States. The Halliburton-developed drilling technology of "fracking" or hydraulic fracturing has unlocked a 'Saudia Arabia of natural gas' just beneath us. But is fracking safe? When filmmaker Josh Fox is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarks on a cross-country odyssey uncovering a trail of secrets, lies and contamination. A recently drilled nearby Pennsylvania town reports that residents are able to light their drinking water on fire. This is just one of the many absurd and astonishing revelations of a new country called GASLAND. Part verite travelogue, part expose, part mystery, part bluegrass banjo meltdown, part showdown."
photo courtesy http://www.kmhurley.com
