Letter to Gov. of NY signed by 59 scientists expressing concern about water quality of produced water (fracked) even after filtration

Source: PSE

The Honorable Andrew M. Cuomo

Governor of New York State

NYS State Capitol Building

Albany, NY 12224

Dear Governor Cuomo:

We the undersigned scientists write to you regarding the ability of municipal drinking water filtration systems to adequately remove contaminants of the sort found in return fluids from hydraulic fracturing, should they somehow enter the water system. The State has proposed that hydraulic fracturing not be allowed in the watersheds of the New York City and Syracuse water systems (where no filtration occurs), but be allowed in watersheds where drinking water is filtered before use. The presumption appears to be that municipal water filtration plants provide protection from potential contaminants.

The best available scientific information does not support this presumption. Most municipal water filtration systems are designed to remove potentially dangerous microorganisms from water, which they do efficiently. The typical filtration system would also remove some hazardous substances. However, there simply is not an adequate knowledge base to conclude that filtering would remove all, or even most, of the hazardous substances found in flow-back fluids from hydraulic fracturing.

Potential contaminants of concern known to be in some flow-back fluids include benzene and other volatile aromatic hydrocarbons, surfactants and organic biocides, barium and other toxic metals, and soluble radioactive compounds containing thorium, radium, and uranium. Municipal filtration systems were not designed with such hazards in mind, and the ability of the filtration systems to remove such hazardous substances has received little, if any, study. We believe, however, the best available science suggests that some of these substances would pass through the typical municipal filtration system.

We urge the State to reconsider its position that existing water filtration systems provide adequate protection against the risk of hydraulic fracturing, should materials from flow-back fluids migrate to lakes, reservoirs, or groundwaters used for municipal water supplies. Each signatory of this letter has significant professional experience with water treatment systems, with aquatic chemistry or biogeochemistry, and/or with the movement and fate of toxic or radioactive materials. We write as individuals and our professional affiliations are listed for your information. You should not infer any endorsement of our viewpoint byour affiliated institutions.

Sincerely,

Robert Howarth, Ph.D.

the David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology

at Cornell University

Founding Editor, Biogeochemistry

Member of the Board of Directors, PSE

And 58 other scientists, listed alphabetically below

Methane and the Greenhouse-Gas Footprint of Natural Gas from Shale Formations

PSEHealthyEnergy.net
Climatic Change Letters , Springer Publishing

Volume 106, Number 1, April 14, 2011

Robert W. Howarth, Ph.D.; Renee Santoro, Ph.D.; Anthony Ingraffea, Ph.D.

Acknowledgments:

 

Preparation of this paper was supported by a grant from the Park Foundation and by an endowment fund of the David R. Atkinson Professorship in Ecology & Environmental Biology at Cornell University. We thank R. Alvarez, C. Arnold, P. Artaxo, A. Chambers, D. Farnham, P. Jamarillo, N. Mahowald, R. Marino, R. McCoy, J. Northrup, S. Porder, M. Robertson, B. Sell, D. Shrag, L. Spaeth, and D. Strahan for information, encouragement, advice, and feedback on our analysis and manuscript. We thank M. Hayn for assistance with the figures. Two anonymous reviewers and Michael Oppenheimer provided very useful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Conflict of Interest disclosure:

We evaluate the greenhouse gas footprint of natural gas obtained by high volume hydraulic fracturing from shale formations, focusing on methane emissions. Natural gas is composed largely of methane, and 3.6% to 7.9% of the methane from shale-gas production escapes to the atmosphere in venting and leaks over the lifetime of a well. These methane emissions are at least 30% more than and perhaps more than twice as great as those from conventional gas. The higher emissions from shale gas occur at the time wells are hydraulically fractured—as methane escapes from flow-back return fluids—and during drill out following the fracturing. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, with a global warming potential that is far greater than that of carbon dioxide, particularly over the time horizon of the first few decades following emission. Methane contributes substantially to the greenhouse gas footprint of shale gas on shorter time scales, dominating it on a 20-year time horizon. The footprint for shale gas is greater than that for conventional gas or oil when viewed on any time horizon, but particularly so over 20 years. Compared to coal, the footprint of shale gas is at least 20% greater and perhaps more than twice as great on the 20-year horizon and is comparable when compared over 100 years. © Robert W. Howarth This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. For a free copy of full article CLICK HERE

EXCLUSIVE Article from EPA Whistleblower Wes Wilson - 'Carnegie Mellon Report in Error'

WTFrack.org EXCLUSIVE
8/18/2011

The reason that Carnegie Mellon's report claims than natural gas has lower carbon footprint that coal compared to the Howarth Cornell report which makes an opposite conclusion lies in some fundamental difference in the factors used by these researchers.

Carnegie Mellow authors use the 100 year time period and a factor of 25 for the heat trapping effect of methane greenhouse gas equivalent to CO2 based on the IPCC's 4th Assessment Report issued in 2007.

Cornell's Howarth uses a factor of 33 for 100 years and a factor of 105 for 20 years.

The global warming potential factors for methane of 33 for 100 years and 105 for the 20 year time period are factors that have been peer reviewed (Lelieveld, et. al. 2005) and a number of experts expect these factors to become the IPCC's factors in their 2012 report.

Carnegie Mellons' report cites methane industry leakage at 2% based on EPA 1996. This year EPA updated it's estimates of methane emissions from the industry which significantly increased the expected rates of methane release from a variety of sources. (See Greenhouse Gas Reporting from the Petroleum and Natural Gas Industry, EPA, 2011)

For example, in 1996 EPA had had an emission factor for well completions from both conventional gas and non-conventional gas (i.e. shales and tight sands that use horizontal wells and fracking) of .02 metric tons of CH4 per well per year. EPA then changed this emission factor this year to .71 tons/year for a conventional well and a whopping 177 tons of CH4 per year from a non-conventional gas well -- such as a fracked Marcellus well.

Cornell's Howarth calculates total industry methane leakages between 3.6%-7.9% based on these reseachers' rigorous evaluation of data including pipeline compression leakage obtained from Russia on pipelines built in the last decade This rate is from pipelines that are newer than US interstate gas lines which have unknown but likely higher leakage rates than these newer facilities built post-Soviet collapse. Professor Howarth used these Russian sources since neither the US industries nor the Dept. of Energy had provided data on pipeline compression leaks in the U.S.

 Neither the Carnegie Mellon nor the Cornell Howarth study estimates leakage in the aging system of distribution lines to the end consumer nor the gas/soil flux that may be coming from the shale gas exploration and development in the field. Such leaks could originate from from either an improper well cementing job or up through the overlying rock formations. (Under EPA's 2011 GHG reporting rules, EPA will not require the oil/gas industry to monitor soil/gas flux in any gas production field.)

Duke University's study indicates that 85% of tested domestic wells with one kilometer of fracked Marcellus wells had thermongenic methane gas, but those researchers did not determine if the pathway was from an improper well cementing job or up through the rock formations from the hydraulically-fractured gas production zone.

Carnegie Mellon's study says it assumes produced water from Marcellus gas in disposed by deep well injection. There are no deep wells in Pennsylvania to my knowledge as the deep metamorphic geologic section there is unsuitable for injection wells due to their lack of permeability and porosity.

Instead the Marcellus Shale produced water in Pa. is disposed of in sewage plants (which either Pa. or EPA may stop) and by disposal on land farm and roads or hauled to centralized waste facilities. While this is not an important factor to calculate GHG life cycle comparisons with coal, it calls into the question the Carnegie Mellon author's understanding of current practices used to develop the Marcellus Shale.

The cover story offered in the blog by John Hanger , the former director of the Pennsylvania DEP, states: "The researchers found that there was virtually no difference between greenhouse emissions from Marcellus shale gas and conventional gas production." This conflicts with what EPA has reported in its 2011 update of emission factors as noted above. In fact the very abstract from Carnegie Mellon does comport with Mr. Hanger's claim as it states that shale gas has an 11% net higher emissions that conventional gas.

"Abstract. This study estimates the life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the production of Marcellus shale natural gas and compares its emissions with national average US natural gas emissions produced in the year 2008, prior to any significant Marcellus shale development. We estimate that the development and completion of a typical Marcellus shale well results in roughly 5500 t of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions or about 1.8 g CO₂e/MJ of gas produced, assuming conservative estimates of the production lifetime of a typical well. This represents an 11% increase in GHG emissions relative to average domestic gas..." (emphasis added)

Wes Wilson

.