The EPA’s report on EnCana’s activities in Wyoming and the op-ed “Once again, energy industry bungles response to fracking concerns” by Loren Steffy in the Houston Chronicle got me thinking about a column I wrote for Oilweek in November 2010. I have reprinted it below.
On the one hand, hydraulic fracturing has been around for over 60 years. On the other hand, it hasn’t. High-volume, horizontal slickwater fracturing is a recent phenomenon. Its use has opened up vast areas of potential resource development – from the oil of the Bakken to the natural gas of the Marcellus shale – that previously had been considered too expensive to develop. The public has a right to ask questions and be concerned.
I agree with Steffy. Encana’s response – “The EPA’s draft report and current view is based on a possibility, not a conclusion built upon peer-reviewed science.the study” – is a irrelevant. In the press release that accompanies the report, the EPA clearly states that the next step in the process is a 30-day, peer-review process to be led by a panel of independent scientists.
Public policy is all about managing possiblities, especially environmental public policy. And that is exactly what the EPA is doing.
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Shale Gas the “New” Oil Sands
First published in Oilweek, November 2010
As opposition to shale gas development – and more specifically hydraulic fracturing, or fracing – gains ground in Colorado, Pennsylvania, New York and beyond, one has to ask the question: Is shale gas the new oilsands?
The “natural gas is green” contingent (including Randy Eresman, president and chief executive officer of Encana, and Texas financier T. Boone Pickens) likes to cite the fact that burning natural gas is a low-greenhouse gas alternative to burning coal for electricity generation or gasoline in cars.
But while climate change concerns might resonate well with those in New York and Los Angeles, rural America is more concerned about the immediate effects of shale gas development and fracing on their land and water than they are about the greenhouse gas advantages of burning natural gas.
Enter first-time filmmaker Josh Fox and his documentary Gasland, which premiered on HBO television this past summer after winning a jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Fox lives in northeastern Pennsylvania on the Delaware River. Above ground: bucolic bliss. Below ground: Marcellus Shale.
The story is compelling and personal. According to Fox, he decided to make the film after receiving an offer of US$100,000 from an energy company to drill on his 19.5 acres of land. Unsure of what signing the lease might mean, Fox embarked on a cross-country road trip in search of people who have shale gas development on their land.
The story is the same in town after town. Home after home. Kitchen after kitchen. Farmers show him sickly, emaciated cattle that are losing their hair. Husbands and wives set fire to their tap water. A woman lets Fox peer into her deep freeze. It is full of dead animals. Killed, she claims, by a frac fluid spill in a creek on her land. She is saving the animals so that some government department – she is not sure which one – might test them for chemicals. Fox gathers water samples at each location, to be analyzed at some later date.
The film is a nightmare for natural gas producers – many of whom mobilized quickly to debunk its arguments. (See www.energyindepth.org/2010/06/debunking-gasland sponsored by, among others, the Independent Petroleum Association of America and many of its state-level equivalents.) It is a boon for environmentalists and people predisposed ?? distrust big business and the bureaucrats that regulate it. In fact, for this latter group, the film’s timing was perfect.
In March, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) initiated a comprehensive review to investigate the potential adverse impact that hydraulic fracturing might have on water quality and public health. This review, said EPA officials, would include a series of public hearings in Texas, Colorado, Pennsylvania and New York.
In June, Representatives Diana DeGette (D-Denver) and Jared Polis (D-Boulder) introduced the Fracking [sic] Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (FRAC) Act. The act would amend the Safe Drinking Water Act and give the EPA authority over hydraulic fracturing. It would also, among other things, require companies to disclose the (now proprietary and confidential) chemicals in frac fluids. Senator Bob Casey, Jr. (D-Pennsylvania) and Senator Chuck Schumer (D-New York) introduced a twin bill in the Senate. Testimony given and received during the hearings prior to the introduction of these bills figured prominently in Fox’s film.
In August, the EPA had to postpone a public session in upstate New York – twice – after local county officials said they wouldn’t be able to cope with the sheer number of attendees, possible protests and rallies. The meetings finally came together in September.
Meanwhile, in Paonia, Colorado, Dr. Theo Colborn (featured in Fox’s film) released the report Natural Gas Operations from a Public Health Perspective and called for full disclosure of all frac fluid chemicals. Dr. Colborn founded the Endocrine Disruption Exchange, a non-profit organization dedicated to compiling and disseminating the scientific evidence on the health and environmental problems caused by low-dose exposure to chemicals that interfere with development and function in humans.
In September, the EPA issued “voluntary” information requests to nine natural gas service companies. BJ Services, Complete Production Services, Halliburton, Key Energy Services, Patte rson -UTI, RPC, Schlumberger, Superior Well Services and Weatherford were all asked to provide 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 and the locations of siies where fracturing has been conducted.
According to the EPA, this information would be used as the basts for gathering further detailed information on a representative selection of sites. As EPA administrator Lisa P. Jackson stated in a press release: “This scientifically rigorous study will help us understand the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water – a concern that has been raised by Congress and the American people. By sharing information about the chemicals and methods they are using, these companies will help us make a thorough and efficient review of hydraulic fracturing and determine the best path forward.”
The companies were given seven days to respond to the request and 30 days to provide the information. Some of the named service companies have already said that they will comply with the request. In an email to the New York Times, Halliburton spokeswoman Cathy G. Mann said, “Halliburton supports and continues to comply with state, local and federal requirements promoting the forthright disclosure of the chemical additives that typically comprise less than one-half of one percent of our hydraulic fracturing solutions. We view this both as a means of enhancing public safety, and as a way to engage the public in a straightforward manner.”
On the one hand, hydraulic fracturing has been around for over 60 years. It was first used commercially in 1949. Some estimate that hydraulic fracturing has been undertaken at over one million wells.
On the other hand, high-volume, horizontal slickwater fracturing is a recent phenomenon. Its use has opened up vast areas of potential resource development – from the oil of the Bakken to the natural gas of the Marcellus shale – that previously had been considered too expensive to develop.
Opponents have argued that the mishandling of frac fluid has resulted in degraded air quality and contaminated groundwater that is damaging to both the environment and human health.
Industry representatives have argued that these concerns are unfounded. They point out that fracturing operations happen far below the surface and far below the groundwater table and posit that the air quality and groundwater contamination problems shown in Gasland are more likely to have come from old wells that have been improperly plugged and abandoned.
Butin a post-Gulf Coast oil spill environment, the public and some members of Congress remain unconvinced. The arguments being aired by the opposing sides of shale gas development are eerily reminiscent of the last several years of the oilsands wars.
Leah Lawrence
