From Bath, England To Bath, New York Gas Drilling Is Fracking Up Our Planet
Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is used in most parts of the world by an industry that has run amok.
As news of vast reserves of shale gas in England broke, opponents of fracking highlighted the potential threat that natural gas extraction methods pose to their land and drinking water. One site has been given particular interest by the UNESCO World Heritage Centre. The city of Bath, England. Paul Crossley, leader of Bath and North East Somerset Council in the UK said:
“There is great concern that the process of fracking will result in the water courses leading to the natural hot springs being contaminated with pollutants from this process, or for the waters to adopt a different direction of travel through new fractures in the underlying rocks. The council has obtained the very best expert advice on this matter and there is little to suggest that any thought has been given to the potential for damage to the deep-water source that supply the springs in Bath. The hot springs are a crucial part of the tourist attraction that sustains thousands of jobs in the city. The council must stand up against these drilling proposals in the strongest possible terms.”
Currently, the County of Avon Act requires council consent for any excavation below certain depths, and the council wants tighter controls over potentially damaging activities near the hot springs.The controls currently do not cover activities outside specific geographical areas, including the Mendip district council area.
The hot springs at Bath have been used since pre-Roman times, with the Romans establishing a spa there. Most of the current architecture of the city is from the 18th century. UNESCO says the baths “are amongst the most famous and important Roman remains north of the Alps.”
“Understandably the act approved by Parliament in 1982 didn’t foresee the levels of protection required to protect the hot springs from fracking. This leaves these ancient waters at the mercy of another local authority’s planning processes, the protection of which they are not duty-bound to consider when coming to a decision.” said Crossley
Highly controversial in the US, Horizontal, High Volume, High Pressure Hydrofracking is a an unconventional method of methane gas drilling which is used in various black shale deposits like the Marcellus, and the Utica strata, where shale gas is already being exploited on a large scale. This drilling process involves chemicals, including cancer-causing compounds, which can pollute water supplies.
Oil and gas are the only two industries which are allowed by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to inject hazardous materials either directly into or near drinking water supplies, unchecked, with no monitoring by the EPA, at all. How has this been allowed to happen?
Here’s how. Before former Vice President, Dick Cheney, took office he was the CEO of Halliburton, the company which patented the hydraulic fracturing process, and is today one of the top three manufacturers of hydraulic fracturing fluids.
In 2004, the EPA did a study on the effects of hydraulic fracturing fluid, and concluded that it posed little or no threat to drinking water supplies – the Halliburton staff were actively involved in the review of that study – surprised?
The conclusion that fracturing fluids posed no threat to life or land led to the 2005 national energy bill exemption of fracturing fluids from the Safe Drinking Water Act. Which means drilling companies can inject anything and everything they want (except for diesel fuel) into the ground, and no one can ask them what it is or if it’s safe. The reason they aren’t allowed to use diesel fuel is because one of its components is benzene.
Benzene is produced both naturally and by human activity, and was determined by the Department of Health and Human Services to cause cancer. And yet, in January of 2011, it was revealed that 12 drilling companies injected 10.2 million gallons of straight diesel fuel into wells in 19 states over the last five years. On top of the straight diesel fuel, they also injected 21.8 million gallons of fracking fluids containing not less than 30% diesel fuel. Not one of those 12 companies applied for a permit to use diesel fuel, and “conveniently” no regulators were aware that this was happening – every day.
In New York State, a consortium of groups and businesses are sponsoring a forum on fracking this month, where this industrial process is supported by Governor Cuomo. Fracking in New York State could start as early as next year, with as many as 2,500 wells drilled after the first year start-up.
Large areas of Yates County, in the state of New York, are currently under lease including the area from which Bath, New York draws its drinking water. While several communities in the region have been informed, by various company representatives, that drilling will not come to the Finger Lakes area, the high levels of leasing and attempted leasing indicate otherwise.
A Norse Energy spokesperson recently referred to Central New York as a prime area to be explored for Utica Shale gas extraction – Utica formation is deeper than the Marcellus and gas analysts think it has great production potential.
Governments have made it clear — gas is an energy source they want to encourage. Earlier this year, it was reported that results of preliminary attempts to extract UK shale gas, using fracking methods by US private equity-backed firm Cuadrilla Resources, would be kept under wraps over the next four years. The UK government granted Cuadrilla that time to investigate potential gas sites and protect the company’s “commercial opportunity”.
The UK’s fracking industry is just getting started, unlike the US and other parts of the world where fracking has been destroying lives, drinking water and land for many years.
In addition to having dangerous chemicals in our groundwater, air and soil, a growing number of people suspect underground shifting caused by hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is the cause of increased earthquakes in regions not prone to having them. In the US state of Arkansas, fracking is being used in a number of places around the state and their seismic activity has spiked in the past five years.
It could be a coincidence, but it could also be, yet another, dangerous consequence of fracking. We must act now if we are to stop fracking.
Theodora Filis is an accomplished journalist, editor, writer, and blogger. Theodora's articles on Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking), Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), Nuclear Fallout's, Poisonous Chemicals and Ground Water Pollutants have appeared in newspapers and magazines around the world. Theodora has been a guest speaker on several radio shows, is a college instructor, and the Contributing Editor for UK Progressive Magazine, Moderator for LinkedIn Climate sub-group, and the Publisher & Editor of The Gaia Reports. You can view Theodora's blog "The Gaia Reports" here: http://thegaiareports.weebly.com/#/
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Theodora, so much here is wrong, I’ll stick to just a couple of points:
1. The natural gas industry has run amok? Define amok. I don’t think that drilling thousands of wells and having 16 families in Dimock PA accidentally impacted by one is a sign of an intrinsically unsafe industry. What has run amok is this urban myth that’s developed of rural communities living under some kind of gas cloud dropping dead of poisoned water. Certainly the NY Times which has run a series of articles on shale has never said that, and a story only today talks of the other big impact: lots of money spewing out of the ground. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/us/hydraulic-fracturing-brings-money-and-problems-to-pennsylvania.html?_r=1 That kind of money disturbs the view of the Josh Fox’s of the world, who feel that their weekend neighbours shouldn’t improve themselves.
2. I’m getting kind of pissed off that lazy journalists who can’t be arsed to write anything past past three Google searches continually drag up this methane in the water crap! Firstly, here in the UK 99% of us have mains water, not well water, so the issue cannot physically arise anyway. Go to your local water company site and you’ll be amazed at what’s already in it: Here in London I’ve got traces of arsenic, cyanide and yes, even trilflouromethane. And I drink it everyday.
So, assuming that you are one of the handful of people who have their own water well, what are the odds that you already have methane in your water well? If you live anywhere near a coal producing area, like Pennsylvania and Colorado in the movie, pretty bloody high. It makes great cinema, but is crap science. Over 25% of wells in Pennsylvania for example had methane in their water according to a survey done in 2004, before more than a handful of gas wells had been drilled.
The true climate crime is to have magical thinking that renewables are just around the corner, and use that as an excuse to continue to burn coal which the US EPA says causes 35,000 premature deaths a year, and not to mention has taken four working class lives just this year in the UK alone.
The economic crime is to insist on a no carbon at all world that costs hundreds of billions ( I trillion Euro according to the WWF for example) to achieve an 80 reduction in carbon by 2050.
I want to have at least that by 2050 too. But resources spent doing that is taken away from the poor, the old, the sick and every single person through higher utility bills.
The alternative? Natural gas, combined as always with efficiency, can be used to replace all coal and much of the diesel based trucking and maritime industry to achieve an imperfect 50 to 60% reduction by 2025. That can be achieved at not only no subsidy at all, but a substantial positive impact on the economy through import substitution and job creation. Billions of pounds go to Russia for gas and coal and to repressive regimes (that you accidentally enable) in any number of oil producers.
Do some deeper research than basing it on an Oscar LOSING movie.