Free Pass for Oil and Gas: Environmental Protections Rolled Back as Western Drilling Surges: Oil and Gas Industry Exemptions

Many of the nearly 270,000 oil and natural gas wells drilled in the West since 1980 have employed hydraulic fracturing, a process that involves the underground injection of tens of thousands to six million gallons of water per well. The water is laced with toxic chemicals and sand or other material known as “proppant.”

The fluid creates fractures in underground formations and the proppant holds these fractures open, allowing oil and gas to flow up the drilling pipe (EPA Fracturing Final 2004 ES-11, Schein 2008, Burnett and Vavra 2006). EPA considered hydraulic fracturing as exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act following the act’s passage in 1974 (LEAF v. EPA 1997, EPA Fracturing Final 2004).

The act sets standards and requires permits for the underground injection of hazardous substances so that these materials do not endanger Underground Sources of Drinking Water (SDWA 2008).


According to 2005 Congressional testimony by the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, a group that represents governors from oil and gas producing states, hydraulic fracturing is used in 90 percent of all oil and natural gas wells drilled in the U.S. (IOGCC Carrillo 2005).


Hydraulic fracturing has recently been associated with water contamination and human health problems. Last summer, the federal Bureau of Land Management documented benzene contamination in water wells in Sublette County, Wyoming, the site of one of the nation’s largest natural gas fields.

Hydraulic fracturing is common in Sublette County (Lustgarten 2008). It was not clear what caused the contamination, but benzene is injected underground in hydraulic fracturing, and the extraction process also causes naturally occurring deposits of benzene to surface (Hess 1998, EPA Final 2004 4-11). What makes the situation so alarming is that there is no other likely source for the benzene in rural Sublette County other than natural gas operations.

Also last year, a nurse in Durango, Colorado almost died after being exposed to hydraulic fracturing chemicals (Hanel 2008).

In a draft 2002 report, EPA reported that at the point of injection, nine hydraulic fracturing chemicals violated water quality standards (EPA Fracturing Draft 2002). This assertion was edited out before the final report was published. The published report did note that fracturing fluids are likely to remain underground and are “likely to be transported by groundwater supplies” (EPA Fracturing Final 2004).

In a 1997 case involving hydraulic fracturing of coalbed methane (CBM) wells, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Safe Drinking Water Act’s underground injection standards applied to hydraulic fracturing. EPA conducted a study and, in a report that was heavily criticized by an internal whistle-blower and others, concluded that “the injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids into CBM wells poses little or no threat” to drinking water (EPA Fracturing Final 2004 ES-16).

The agency suggested that it was up to states with primary authority to enforce the Safe Drinking Water Act to set standards for any hydraulic fracturing that might threaten underground sources of drinking water (EPA Fracturing Final 2004 ES-17). In 2005, Congress exempted most hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act but said the act would apply to fracturing with diesel fuel (SDWA Exemption 2005).

Environmental Working Group

Natural Gas Condensate - Wiki

Natural gas condensate is a low-density mixture of hydrocarbon liquids that are present as gaseous components in the raw natural gas produced from many natural gas fields.

It condenses out of the raw gas if the temperature is reduced to below the hydrocarbon dew point temperature of the raw gas.

The natural gas condensate is also referred to as simply condensate, or gas condensate, or sometimes natural gasoline because it contains hydrocarbons within the gasoline boiling range. Raw natural gas may come from any one of three types of gas wells:^[1][2]

• Crude oil wells – Raw natural gas that comes from crude oil wells is called associated gas. This gas can exist separate from the crude oil in the underground formation, or dissolved in the crude oil.

• Dry gas wells – These wells typically produce only raw natural gas that does not contain any hydrocarbon liquids. Such gas is called non-associated gas.

• Condensate wells – These wells produce raw natural gas along with natural gas liquid. Such gas is also non-associated gas and often referred to as wet gas.

Wikipedia.org

Hydraulic Fracturing Fluids Discharged

Liquid nitrogen tanker trucks transport gas to the site for nitrogen foam fracturing. Nitrogen will travel through pipes to be mixed with water and a foaming agent at the wellhead prior to injection. The foam is used to create and propagate the fracture deep within the targeted coal seam.

The fracturing fluids, additives, and proppant are pumped to the wellhead and mixed just prior to injection. (Secret Sauce of non-disclosed toxic chemicals)

Fluid that is extracted from the well is sprayed through a diffuser and stored in a lined trench until it is disposed of off-site or discharged.

Discharged?  Is that what the EPA stated in their documents?
Discharged where?

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Click HERE to read entire EPA document

dis·charge (ds-chärj)

v. dis·charged, dis·charg·ing, dis·charg·es

v.tr.

1.

a. To relieve of a burden or of contents; unload.

b. To unload or empty (contents).

2.

a. To release, as from confinement, care, or duty: discharge a patient; discharge a soldier.

b. To let go; empty out: a train discharging commuters.

c. To pour forth; emit: a vent discharging steam.

dictionary.com


source: EPA.gov
June 2004

Congress to Investigate Safety of Natural Gas Drilling Practice Known as Hydraulic Fracturing

The top Democrats on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce have asked eight oil-field companies to disclose the chemicals theyve used and the wells theyve drilled in over the past four years. Last week, Waxman also revealed two of the largest gas drilling companies have pumped hundreds of thousands of gallons of diesel-based fluids into the ground in violation of a voluntary agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency.


PART 1


PART 2

Fracking:

This Website is a Crash Course In Fracking, Zusman, Neil , (2010)

This website is a crash course in fracking. At the top and bottom of these pages are links to annotated information about fracking by subject, with each page listing sorted alphabetically. Fracking (fracing, hydraulic fracturing), or hydrofracking, is a method of mining for natural gas which greatly increases the efficiency of extracting shale gas from the ground. Geological experts claim that shale beds in New York, particularly the Marcellus Shale, contain more natural gas than previously estimated.

Can we benefit by this new source of natural gas without it affecting our water and lifestyle? The diagram below, provided by Energy in Depth, an Oil and Gas Industry website, portrays a clean, quiet, well site. The reality however, as seen in the diagram provided at the bottom of this page by The Colorado Independent and Pro Publica is different.

Hydraulic fracturing uses millions of gallons of water, chemicals and lubricants. Where does all this water come from? The contents of the underground injection fluids used in fracking is a trade secret. In 2005, fracking was exempted from regulation by the Safe Drinking Water Act (1974) leaving it up to the states to monitor and regulate a rapidly increasing number of fracked wells.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was criticized in 2004 by Weston Wilson, an EPA scientist for "bad science" in this Fracking Study which led the EPA to mislead Congress to pass the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (PDF, 511 pages, 3.1MB).

Acts of Congress are often designated as public laws when they are intended to protect all members of society in areas of interaction not limited to contract and tort laws. Most U.S. Consumer Protection laws are written as Acts of Congress. Consumer Protection laws are a form of government regulation that protect the interests of consumers.

Section 322 of this Law amended the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) to exempt all fracturing fluids except diesel from EPA regulations.

Read the New York Times editorial, 11/3/2009, on the Halliburton Loophole.

Federal regulators currently do not have access to a full accounting of the types and quantities of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing fluids. On February 18, 2010 the Congressional Energy and Commerce Committee sent letters to eight companies in the fracking business requesting information on the chemicals used in fracturing fluids and the potential impact of the practice on the environment and human health. On March 18, 2010 the EPA announced that it is re-allocating $1.9 million for a comprehensive study of hydraulic fracturing. On April 7, the EPA Science Advisory Board (SAB) met for two days to provide advice on EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) proposed approach to be used to frame the hydraulic fracturing study design and the areas that will be addressed by research relevant to hydraulic fracturing. Public comments were included but will not be permanently online.

The Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (FRAC) Act was introduced on 6/9/2009 in the Senate to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act and reverse the hydraulic fracturing exemption. Debate on this legislation is expected later in 2010.

This legislation will not prohibit mining and drilling companies from operating, however it will remove their exemption under the Safe Drinking Water Act which allows companies to keep secret the chemicals and toxins they use in this process. Businesses involved in hydraulic fracturing projects can still continue to use a combination of water and sand or ceramic beads to increase oil and natural gas production.

This website, Fracking Resource Guide annotates evidence, opinions, and observations on whether or not the potential economic benefits for the companies doing business in the Marcellus Shale outweigh the potential harm to our other public and private interests.

Almost all of the links lead to free internet resources. There are also references to scholarly books and journal articles that your local or school librarian can help you locate. You'll find background information on fracking from reliable authors; links to companies; expert opinions; public opinions for and against fracking; government reports, politics, pending legislation and regulations; legal issues, and press reports. Use the menu at the top and bottom of these pages and the search box to navigate these resources.

Editor's Note: If we bust the myths about global warming and fossil fuels - the growing scarcity of our oil supply, and can replant lots of trees, by Freeman Dyson's estimates, a trillion, to remove all the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere now, with a lot more needed by 2050, as India, China, Brazil, etc. industrialize; then we only have to worry about methane from gas flares, and the melting of the tundra permafrost to prevent humanity from reaching the "tipping-point" of our destruction. The Earth will undoubtedly survive, but we won't. Global Warming must be addressed by all governments, NGO's, citizen activists, and corporations. Drilling Isn't Safe. (Neil Zusman, 2010-11-21.)