New Fracking Research Disputes A Fundamental Industry Claim

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A primary claim of the hydraulic fracking industry is that deeply buried rock layers will always seal and contain the dangerous chemicals that are injected thousands of feet underground.

But a new study released in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluded that fracking for natural gas under Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania may lead to harmful gas or liquids flowing upward and contaminating drinking-water supplies.

The study found that salty, mineral-rich fluids deep beneath Pennsylvania's natural gas fields are seeping upward thousands of feet into drinking water supplies. Although it found no evidence of fracking chemicals doing the same, the findings suggest that there are paths that would let hazardous gas or fluids flow up after drilling:

"The biggest implication is the apparent presence of connections from deep underground to the surface," Robert Jackson, a biology professor at Duke University and one of the study's authors, told ProPublica. "It's a suggestion based on good evidence that there are places that may be more at risk."

The study supplements another recent study that used computer modeling to predict how fracking fluids would move over time and found that they could migrate toward drinking water supplies far more quickly than experts have previously predicted.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/new-research-debunks-fundamental-fracking-industry-claim-2012-7#ixzz20H4G5cjb
http://shale.sites.post-gazette.com/index.php/news/archives/24680-findings-mixed-in-fracking-water-study

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1. Fracking Disclosure Policies Fail to Protect Public Health and Safety

Fracking Disclosure Policies Fail to Protect Public Health and Safety

Posted on July 10, 2012

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State oversight laws requiring disclosure of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing (commonly referred to as fracking) are in need of an overhaul. A new OMB Watch report, The Right to Know, the Responsibility to Protect: State Actions Are Inadequate to Ensure Effective Disclosure of the Chemicals Used in Natural Gas Fracking, examines state chemical disclosure rules and aims to empower the public. It also encourages state and local authorities to improve their chemical disclosure standards, especially in those regions of the country most involved in and affected by natural gas fracking.

Disclosing the chemicals associated with fracking is the necessary first step to ensuring that our search for new domestic energy supplies does not compromise our water resources or threaten the health of our people. "Citizens need to have adequate information to evaluate the potential risks and rewards of allowing natural gas fracking in their communities," said Sean Moulton, Director of Information Policy at OMB Watch and an author of the report
http://www.ombwatch.org/node/12130

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2. Underground paths boost risk of fracking pollution

Naturally occurring underground pathways may increase the risk of well water pollution from fracking, a process used to release natural gas from the ground, U.S. scientists said on Monday.



While the latest study by Duke University researchers does not find evidence that methane found in some samples of drinking water was directly caused by fracking, it raises concern about the ease with which deep ground elements can infiltrate shallow wells.



Amid concern by environmentalists about the potential dangers of fracking — hydraulic fracturing — a key argument by oil and gas interests has been that it is not risky to drinking water wells because the activity occurs deep beneath the Earth, far from the wells which are closer to the surface.



"This is a good news-bad news kind of finding," said co-author Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment.



Researchers found it was unlikely that shale gas drilling had caused higher levels of salinity in some of the water wells sampled, since the briny wells were either not near drilling operations or showed higher salinity prior to drilling.



However, the examination also suggested that there must be natural pathways through which gases and salty brine liquid from deep in the Earth can travel in order to infiltrate and change the quality of shallow water wells.



"This could mean that some drinking water supplies in northeastern Pennsylvania are at increased risk for contamination, particularly from fugitive gases that leak from shale gas well casings," Vengosh said.
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/underground-paths-boost-risk-of-fracking-pollution

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3. Fracking study finds risk for water sources

Hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in Pennsylvania may contaminate drinking-water supplies, a Duke University study concluded.


The report, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said a chemical analysis of 426 shallow groundwater samples showed matches with brine found in rock more than 1 mile deep, suggesting paths that would let gas or water flow up after drilling.

While the connection predates hydraulic fracturing, it shows natural routes for seepage into wells or streams, the report says.

"The industry has always claimed that this is a separation zone, and there is no way fluids could flow" from the shale to the aquifers, Avner Vengosh, a professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University and one of the study's eight authors, said in an interview. "We see evidence of hydrologic connectivity."



http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/article.aspx?subjectid=49&articleid=20120710_49_E4_CUTLIN15702

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4. Fracking Can Pollute, Confirms Study

Slowly but surely the evidence is growing against fracking, as the authorities struggle to protect public health and drinking water.

A report published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Duke University professors found that there could be natural paths in the rock that connects the frack zone with drinking water.

The study shows that briny fluids may have migrated from deep within Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale, one of the formations at the heart of the fracking revolution, into shallow aquifers hundreds of feet above.

And logic suggests that if natural briny fluids can travel through layers of rocks, fracking fluids could, too.


http://priceofoil.org/2012/07/10/fracking-can-pollute-confirms-study/

[johnsolaris]

5. robber barons

The Robber Barons are taking over again. Fracking is a perfect example of why environmental laws were enacted in the first place.
This is the reason we must get out there & fight, do not let the Robber Baron corporations take over with help from their Republican
lackeys.

[Downwinder]

6. Stands to reason that

if just a gas well, unfracked, can pollute the ground water (Bowie, TX), fracking makes it more likely that that will happen.

[enough]

7. k&r (nt)

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8. Now the API funded finding and their version of the results

Industry analysis pokes holes in EPA hydraulic fracturing study


The Environmental Protection Agency’s multi-year investigation of the relationship between hydraulic fracturing and drinking water supplies is overbroad, underfunded and too ambitious, according to an analysis commissioned by two energy industry trade groups that was released Tuesday.

The assessment by the Battelle Memorial Institute — which was funded by the American Petroleum Institute and America’s Natural Gas Alliance — concludes that the design of EPA’s study has strayed far from what lawmakers intended when they first ordered the EPA to investigate the issue two years ago.

Hydraulic fracturing involves pumping mixtures of sand, chemicals and water underground to release natural gas and oil from dense rock formations. Conservationists have warned that the fracturing chemicals can be spilled above ground and that natural gas can escape from poorly designed wells to contaminate nearby drinking water supplies.
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2012/07/10/industry-analysis-pokes-holes-in-epa-hydraulic-fracturing-study/