A guest blog by Rolf Hanson, Executive Director
Associated Petroleum Industries of Pennsylvania
The unknown can be a powerful source of fear. Knowledge and awareness are key factors, researchers say, in building comfort and confidence. For instance, most people say they would be comfortable walking around their immediate neighborhood after dark but would be wary walking in a strange – particularly urban – neighborhood after dark.
It seems the very same factors are at work in the reaction of some people to the idea of modern methods of natural gas drilling. Because these techniques – commonly called hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” – are relatively new to parts of Pennsylvania.
That doesn’t mean the process is untested, untried or unsafe.
In fact, hydraulic fracturing is a well-understood technology that has been employed in the United States and Pennsylvania for more than 60 years in more than one million wells. It uses water-based fluids to create fissures in rock, through which the natural gas can then pass and be brought to the surface. The fluids are more than 99 percent water and sand.
Before a natural gas well can be drilled, the state approves the well permit and site plan, which includes stringent well construction standards to protect groundwater. It then monitors the drilling operations. Also, wells are drilled away from drinking water wells, usually at depths far below any likely presence of usable groundwater. And, when a well is drilled, steel casing and surrounding layers of concrete provide additional protection to keep the gas produced and any accompanying fluids safely inside the well bore. After hydraulic fracturing fluids are used, they are recycled or disposed of according to federal and state regulations.
The Ground Water Protection Council, an organization of federal and state regulators and others concerned about groundwater quality, found no evidence of contamination of drinking water supplies or increased risk to human health due to the hydraulic fracturing of coal-bed methane wells -- even though more than 10,000 coal-bed methane wells had been completed in the reporting states. Coal-bed methane wells are shallower than the natural gas wells drilled in Pennsylvania and closer to groundwater formations.
In 2004, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency concluded that, although thousands of coal-bed methane wells are fractured annually, there were ''no confirmed cases that are linked to fracturing fluid injection into coal-bed methane wells or subsequent underground movement of fracturing fluids.''
Some people, under the guise of environmental protectionism, seek to stir fears of the unknown. But the hydraulic fracturing process is anything but unknown. It’s a common technique used on a daily basis in many parts of the United States with great success and safety.
# # #
Portions of this blog first appeared in the Allentown MORNING CALL on April 6, 2010, and are used here today with permission of the author.
Comments