The scary allegations behind natural gas wells
Someone is pumping chemicals into our earth. They dig a hole thousands of mile deep and then use a pumping truck to inject more than a million gallons of water, sand and chemicals into it at high pressure. They won’t tell us exactly what they’re pumping. And the worst part is that when things go awry water has become contaminated and houses have been exploding near these holes, lifting them entirely off their foundations and sparking fires.
It sounds like a science fiction movie, but it is real. The process of injecting chemicals, sand and water into natural gas wells is known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The highly-pressurized injections cause the rock around the wells to crack, allowing natural gas to flow through fissures to the well. Hydraulic fracturing is used in nine out of 10 natural gas wells in the US.
On June 9th Democratic members of Congress introduced twin bills in the Senate and the House that would close a loophole in the 2005 Energy Policy Act that exempted hydraulic fracturing from federal oversight. The bills, termed the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act, would give the Environmental Protection Agency authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing and would require drilling companies to disclose the exact chemical compounds they use.
The natural gas industry voiced strong opposition to the bills during congressional hearings and in the media. They claim that states already regulate fracking and that adding an additional layer of regulation will cost $100,000 per new natural gas well in the US. But those who support the bill claim that natural gas companies are misrepresenting the costs of the bill. They say EPA already devolves most regulatory capacity to the states, so the bill would merely give the federal organization the authority to set a baseline for best practices and investigate cases of contamination.
Industry spokesmen are supported by lawmakers in many states where the natural gas industry component of the economy. Rep. Dan Boren (D-OK), for instance, told the congressional hearing “I am proud that I am supported by the oil and gas industry because they employ a lot of people in my state and I am going to stick up for them.”
A number of scientific reports at sites where hydraulic fracturing has allegedly caused water contamination and the buildup of explosive gases, however, support those who favor the bills. There have been allegations of water contamination due to hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania, Colorado, Wyoming, Ohio and New Mexico.
One of the most contentious issues behind the debate is the secrecy behind what chemicals are used in hydraulic fracturing. Natural gas companies say they cannot reveal what chemicals they use because they are trade secrets. The EPA, on the other hand, claims that they are unable to investigate whether or not hydraulic fracturing actually contaminates water because they don’t know what chemicals are involved. Several studies have alleged that carcinogenic materials are used in fracking. A well in Sublette County, Wyoming, home of one of the nation’s largest gas fields, was found to be contaminated by benzene in July of 2008. Benzene causes leukemia and aplastic anemia. Many charge that benzene was one of the chemicals used to create fissures in the rocks at the nearby gas wells.
Another case of contamination has been linked by state officials in Ohio to hydraulic fracturing. In December of 2007 a house exploded near Cleveland when a spark ignited the buildup of natural gas in the basement of the home. The explosion blew the door of the house 20 feet from its hinges. Nineteen nearby houses were evacuated because they had unsafe levels of natural gas. A subsequent report determined that the gas entered the houses through water wells and that “the second contributing factor [to the gas buildup] was the decision to proceed with stimulating, or hydro-fracturing, the well.”
The bills are currently being debated in both chambers of Congress. “We’re not talking about banning fracking here,” said Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo), one of the bill’s sponsors. “What we’re for is regulating it.” And even if just one of the cases of water contamination and gas buildup is actually a result of hydraulic fracturing, regulation is the proper course of action.
