Fracking Threatens Water Supplies

“EPA is particularly concerned about the potential risks associated with gas drilling activities in the New York City watershed and the reservoirs that collect drinking water for nine million people…While protecting the New York City watershed is important because of the millions of New Yorkers who rely on this drinking water supply, we also have concerns about water quality impacts throughout the state. Just because fewer people rely on upstate water sources does not imply that these supplies are not also worthy of protection.”
EPA Region 2, Comments on the Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Study

Gas drilling using hydraulic fracturing “fracking” has the potential to cause irreparable and widespread contamination of our clean, pure water supply in the Catskills, the source of water for millions of people.  Irreversible impacts could include contamination of groundwater from the toxic chemicals used in fracking, depletion of aquifers to support the fracking process, and contamination from the production of billions of gallons of hazardous wastewater byproducts produced by this process.

These impacts are explored in Anne Marie Garti’s recent paper “The Illusion of the Blue Flame:  Water Law and Unconventional Gas Drilling”, which concludes that there is a sharp distinction between the icon of natural gas as a clean blue flame and the actual and projected impact of unconventional gas drilling to water.

The Fracking Process
Extracting previously unavailable natural gas out of shale that has remained intact for millions of years involves the development of gigantic and intrusive chemical industrial facilities. Over the lifetime of any given fracking well, millions of gallons of water are used, being drawn from regional lakes and rivers, and transported by hundreds of 18 wheel giant trucks over rural farm country local roads. Each million gallons of water used in the fracking process is loaded with 40,000 lbs. of hazardous chemicals.

Fracking injects chemically contaminated water to create fissures in the intact shale in order to force gas out and into industrial production wells. In order to fracture intact rock, a toxic, multi-million gallon mixture of water, sand and chemicals is fiercely pumped into the rock under high pressure. When the fluid can no longer be absorbed by subsurface water systems, the high-pressure chemical concoction fractures the rock and forces the gas into pipes leading to the industrial well. Millions of gallons of toxic fracturing fluids are then pumped out of the well and into giant surface holding ponds. Studies have shown that anywhere from between 60-80% of the contaminated fracking fluids may remain underground.

Fracking Fluid Contains Hundreds of Toxic Chemicals
Scientists have identified almost 300 chemicals used in the fracking process, including known carcinogens, reproductive toxicants, arsenic, hydrogen sulfide (a broad-spectrum poison, particularly destructive to the nervous system) and mercury (a highly toxic neurotoxin that attacks the central nervous system and is corrosive to the gastro-intestinal organs).

Despite the enormous risks involved, the names and characteristics of many of these toxic chemicals are withheld from the public because the gas companies consider them as “trade secrets”. Gas companies have so far successfully convinced government regulators that revealing the names and characteristics of chemicals they use would cause them to lose competitive advantages.

The gas companies have fought tirelessly to exempt the process of hydraulic fracturing from federal government regulation claiming that complying with federal environmental laws would cripple their business and that the state regulations that are in place are already strong enough. They have managed to evade regulation and hydrofracking is currently exempt from large portions of the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which was passed by Congress in 1976 to protect the public and the environment from potential hazards of waste disposal.

Contamination of Groundwater Supplies
The natural gas companies’ assertions that hydraulic fracturing is safe is belied by thousands of documented cases of drinking water supplies, streams and aquifers being contaminated across the country. This is clearly explained in South African filmmaker Jolynn Minnaar’s film Unearthed:  The Fracking Facade.

Of particular concern in the Catskills is the very real threat that the toxic chemicals injected underground will migrate into the subsurface aquifer, the underground layer of permeable rock, sediment or soil that yields water because the pore spaces in aquifers are filled with water and are interconnected so that water flows through them.

A recent study by Duke University confirmed that methane gas from fracking contaminated drinking water in sites they tested.

Ralph Heath, a respected USGS geologist, is quoted on the Department of Environmental Conservation website as saying in 1964: “…..In most places ground water occurs in and moves through an intricate network of very small openings. Remarkably few wells drilling in New York fail to penetrate at least a few of these openings.”

Tom Myers, a hydrogeologist from Nevada hired by Catskill Mountainkeeper has proven his hypothesis that “fracturing by injecting fluids into the shale causes conditions that make transport of contaminants from the shale to surface aquifers possible.”  The dSGEIS presents an erroneous analysis that concludes that contaminants in the shale are isolated and cannot reach the near-surface aquifers.

Depletion of Aquifers
There is a very real danger that the huge water withdrawals required by fracking will deplete aquifers.  Fracking requires millions of gallons of water, which is drawn from area lakes and rivers and transported in large 18-wheeler trucks over local roads.   Each individual fracking of a well requires 3,000,000 to 6,000,000 gallons of water, although there are reports that some fracking operations require as much as 8,000,000 gallons per fracking.  Multiply that by multiple frackings per well and possibly thousands of wells across the state, and the withdrawal of water is huge.

EPA Study Found Aquifers Tainted with Synthetic Chemicals
In a study released on December 8, 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency detected synthetic chemicals, “like the ones used in hydraulic fracturing”, in aquifers in Pavillion, Wyoming.  This came after residents complained of many health problems, which they associated with the drilling for natural gas.

Contamination from Hazardous Wastewater
An average of 20% to 40% of the water returns to the surface as chemically laden, briny and possibly radioactive from exposure to naturally existing radon underground and then sits in holding ponds until it is trucked to treatment plants.  This contaminated water sits uncovered and exposed to the air making it not only a danger for humans but for wildlife as well.   For more on problems with wastwater, click here.

In the northeastern Pennsylvania town of Dimock, state regulators have repeatedly penalized Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. for contaminating the drinking water wells of 14 homes with leaking methane and for numerous spills of diesel and chemical drilling additives, including one that contaminated a wetland and killed fish.  For more on Dimock and “accidents” in other locations, click here.

Water is More Precious Than Gas
In the Catskills, we are extremely fortunate to have some of the purest, uncontaminated water on the planet.  Our abundance contrasts sharply with the growing shortages of usable water in many parts of our country and the world.

Learn more about the worldwide threats to water.

What the Scientific Experts Hired by New York City Have to Say About the Danger of Surface Spills and Accidents
“The dSGEIS generally ignores the potential for serious adverse impacts to water quality as a result of surface spills…The groundwater impact analysis is inadequate and ignores documented incidents of contamination in other areas where this type of drilling is currently active and ignores the probability of subsurface migration through fractures and unplugged well bores.”

“Data collected on spills from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission’s (COGCC) Colorado Oil and Gas Information Service (COGIS) revealed that over the last three years oil and gas drilling spills in Colorado resulted in nearly 1,000 accidental spills/releases and that approximately 18 percent of incidents were classified as impacting ground water and eight percent of incidents were classified as impacting surface water.”

“It is also reasonable to expect that some spills will go undetected due to negligence, human error, or intentional misconduct, or that even if spills are detected, circumstances will prevent full recovery of the contaminants. This is exemplified by the recent incident in Dimock, PA in which 8,000 gallons of fracture fluids were released into a stream resulting in a fish kill. The carcinogenic chemical (Halliburton LGC-35BM) is extremely soluble, so once released to the stream it could not be recovered.”

Based on extensive study and scientific evidence, Catskill Mountainkeeper has called for a ban on fracking. We are also working within the existing regulatory process in New York to raise critical issues, widen the discussion of the impacts of drilling, and expand the options available to protect the public.