How the New American “Oil Boom” Might Destroy the Environment and
Decimate the Health of Millions
April 17, 2013
Story at-a-glance
Some forecasters claim the US will outstrip Saudi Arabia as
the world’s largest oil producer by 2017, effectively
rendering the US self-sufficient in terms of energy
production. Others analysts warn shale drilling is the next
Big Bubble that could rival the bank industry bailouts
Recently unsealed court records show fracking activities in
Pennsylvania leaked acetone into fresh water supplies.
Plaintiff’s water supply was also found to be contaminated
with unsafe levels of acrylonitrile, a highly flammable and
toxic chemical compound classified as a probable carcinogen
Fracking proponents claim it is a safe and effective
drilling method that reduces the surface footprint of the
drilling operation. However, people across the US have
reported serious adverse health events resulting from
contamination of air and/or drinking water
Reported adverse effects of exposure to fracking chemicals
include respiratory ailments, shortness of breath, chemical
sensitivities, skin rashes, swelling, skin lesions, severe
headaches, nausea and vomiting
Recent headlines in the American press would have you believe
we’re in for a robust economic boom, courtesy of the new shale
gas revolution. Some forecasters claim the US will outstrip
Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil producer by 2017,
effectively rendering the US self-sufficient in terms of energy
production.
But are we really “swimming in oil”? And is the shale
revolution really the answer to all our energy and economic
problems?
In pictures and words, three different publications tell the
story, while EPA documents add a twist as to how wetlands should
be protected through all this, but aren’t.
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed Executive Order No.
11990 for the protection of wetlands,1
which prohibits anyone, including farmers, from altering
wetlands in any way.
As a result of that legislation farmers are unable to touch
wetlands without fear of federal prosecution, which can at times
put extreme limits on their farming protocols due to the
stringent way wetlands are defined. Sometimes a simple puddle in
a farmer’s field can be defined as a wetland.
Conversely, oil companies now come in and wipe out huge
tracts of wetlands without any repercussions at all, showing
that, apparently, wetland protection loses its importance when
oil company profits are at stake.
The Great Oil Swindle
As reported in The Atlantic,2
the Bakken shale situated in North Dakota holds an estimated 18
billion barrels of crude oil. Originally discovered in 1951, the
oil was too expensive to extract at the time, as it’s embedded
in the rock.
That all changed in 2008 when hydraulic fracturing, or
"fracking," became widely available. Since then, North Dakota
has experienced a massive oil drilling boom, and as of this
year, the state has more than 200 active oil rigs producing
about 20 million barrels of oil per month.
The oil business has dramatically altered the state’s
landscape, and pictures3
show big fracking sites now located right next to private homes
and farms, and as revealed in the PBS special above, having a
fracking operation on your land can be devastating to your
health...
Another article in Le Monde Diplomatique4
highlights the environmental destruction that accompanies oil
and natural gas fracking, and also questions whether the
fracking boom is little more than another bubble—“a temporary
recovery that masks deep structural instability”:
“These resources can only be mined at the cost of
massive environmental pollution: their extraction
involves hydraulic fracturing... using the technique of
horizontal drilling... But their exploitation in the US
has brought about the creation of hundreds of thousands
of jobs and offers the advantage of cheap and abundant
energy...
But is the shale revolution all it’s fracked up
to be?
The ongoing fragility of the global economy
should give pause for thought... But policymakers have
learnt few lessons from the 2008 crash, and may be on
course to repeat similar mistakes in the petroleum
sector.
A New York Times investigation first unearthed
major cracks in the 'shale boom' narrative in June 2011,
finding that state geologists, industry lawyers and
market analysts 'privately' questioned 'whether
companies are intentionally, and even illegally,
overstating the productivity of their wells and the size
of their reserves.'
According to the paper, 'the gas may not be as
easy and cheap to extract from shale formations deep
underground as the companies are saying, according to
hundreds of industry e-mails and internal documents and
an analysis of data from thousands of wells.'”
Two US energy consultants reportedly sounded the alarm at the
beginning of 2012 with an article in the British energy industry
journal Petroleum Review. They wrote that there’s a
“basis for reasonable doubts about the reliability and
durability of US shale gas reserves.” They claim the reserves
have been “inflated” under new Security and Exchange Commission
(SEC) rules that allow gas companies to make claims about the
size of the reserve without an independent third party audit.
This overestimation of reserves can hide lack of profitability.
According to former UK chief government scientist Sir David
King, production at wells tends to drop off by 60-90 percent
within the first year of production alone, and petroleum
geologist Arthur Berman has noted that the annual decline in
production exceeds 42 percent. All in all, this makes drilling
for shale gas extremely unprofitable...
As noted in the featured article:
“Finance specialists have not been taken in. 'The
economics of fracking are horrid,' writes US financial
journalist Wolf Richter in Business Insider. 'Drilling
is destroying capital at an astonishing rate, and
drillers are left with a mountain of debt just when
decline rates are starting to wreak their havoc. To keep
the decline rates from mucking up income statements,
companies had to drill more and more, with new wells
making up for the declining production of old wells.
Alas, the scheme hit a wall, namely reality.'”
According to financial analyst John Dizard, producers of
shale gas have borrowed large amounts of money just to fund the
initial land acquisition drilling. Operating under “deficit
financing,” they’ve spent two to five times their operating cash
flow just to get started, and with production dropping off at a
staggering rate, these producers quickly find themselves
operating in the red.
What it all amounts to is an “oil bubble” that could rival
the recent bank bailouts. The question is where is the bailout
money for the oil and gas industry going to come from? Worse
yet, depending on how far the bubble is allowed to expand and
how many new wells are drilled to maintain even production, the
environment could be absolutely decimated in the process of
trying to avert what appears to be an inevitable financial
cataclysm...
Unsealed Records in Pennsylvania Fracking Case Reveals
Contamination Problems
A lawsuit recently unsealed in the Washington County Court of
Common Pleas reveals the health hazards associated with the
fracking process, and how revolving doors between industry and
agencies tasked to investigate wrongdoing places your health a
distant second to industry profits. According to
stateimpact.npr.org:5
“The Hallowich family sued the gas drillers after
they say nearby drilling activity, including compressor
stations, made their children sick. The mother,
Stephanie Hallowich became an outspoken critic of gas
drilling in the Marcellus Shale. But the final
settlement imposed a strict gag order on the Hallowich
family, as well as the gas drilling companies. The
Hallowich family has since moved from their home.”
The drilling companies, Range Resources, MarkWest Energy and
Williams Gas, settled the contamination case for $750,000,
according to recently unsealed records, of which the Hallowich
children receive $10,000 each. The order to unseal the records
was entered on March 20, reversing a previous decision to have
them permanently sealed. According to the judge, claims of
privacy rights on behalf of the drillers had no merit. The
records are now posted in full on the NPR site.6
The records show that the fracking activities had leaked
acetone into fresh water supplies, and the Pennsylvania
Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) inspector tasked
with investigating complaints about the water contamination went
on to work for the drilling company, Range Resources. Not
surprisingly, complaint files at the DEP were subsequently found
to be missing...
The Hallowich’s drinking water was found to be contaminated
with acrylonitrile above “safe” levels, a highly flammable and
toxic chemical compound classified as a probable carcinogen. The
Hallowich's also claimed air emissions from the gas processing
plant made them sick. However, as part of the settlement, the
Hallowich's signed an affidavit stating there’s "no medical
evidence" that their children's symptoms are "definitively"
connected to drilling activity.
Is Fracking Really Safe for the Environment and Residents of the
Area?
Fracking proponents claim it is a safe and effective drilling
method that reduces the surface footprint of the drilling
operation. However, people across the US have reported serious
adverse health events resulting from contamination of air and/or
drinking water.
The method entails pumping chemical-laced water and sand at
high pressure into shale rock formation, thereby releasing
hydrocarbons. The chemicals used in the process have the
potential to leak into nearby groundwater, as they did in the
Pennsylvania case above, either from the well, or from spills
above ground. Yet another concern is fracking-induced
earthquakes. Reported adverse effects of exposure to fracking
chemicals include:
Respiratory ailments; shortness of breath
Chemical sensitivities
Skin rashes; swelling; lesions
Severe headaches
Nausea and vomiting
According to Reuters,7
several drillers have been fined for water contamination due to
spilled fracking fluids, and in 2011 the US Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) released findings of a potential link
between fracking and water contamination after sampling water
supplies in Pavillion, Wyoming. The EPA is scheduled to release
an in-depth study on fracking’s impact on water supplies in
2014. In the following video, Cornell University professor
Anthony Ingraffea explains the destructive process of fracking.
The lecture was given at Luzerne County Community College in
Nanticoke, Pennsylvania in 2010.
Freshwater in Increasingly Short Supply
While it may seem unthinkable to some, especially Westerners,
freshwater supplies are dwindling across the globe, making
protecting drinking water supplies all the more critical—be it
from agricultural or industry pollution, or any other source of
contamination. According to a recent article in Scientific
American,8
the combined water use by US agriculture, industry and
population exceeds all the water flowing in the nation’s rivers.
The remainder is supplied from groundwater aquifers, which are
receding at a faster pace than being replenished. Financial
products innovator Richard Sandor predicts water (both quantity
and quality) may soon be traded as goods. Needless to say, at
that point, those who cannot pay will not get any...
In light of that, it seems irresponsible to allow shale
fracking operations to blast toxic chemicals into the earth that
can then contaminate groundwater supplies. Fines and payouts to
victims who successfully sue will not protect our water
supplies. Only stopping the fracking will. According to
water-contamination-from-shale.com:9
“The major concern with shale gas drilling is the
chemicals used in the process. Because the federal
Energy Policy Act of 2005 exempted hydraulic fracturing
from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act, shale
gas drillers don’t have to disclose what chemicals they
use.
A study conducted by Theo Colburn, PhD, the director of
the Endocrine Disruption Exchange in Paonia, Colorado,
has so far identified 65 chemicals that
are probable components of the fracking fluids used by
shale gas drillers. These chemicals included
benzene, glycol-ethers, toluene, 2-(2-methoxyethoxy)
ethanol, and nonylphenols. All of these chemicals have
been linked to health disorders when human exposure is
too high.
Concerns are growing that many of the chemicals
used in shale gas drilling are seeping into groundwater.
While some of the injection fluid used in the process
comes back to the surface, 30 to 40 percent is never
recovered, according to the industry’s own estimates.”
Improper disposal of waste water from fracking operations
have also been noted. In 2011, natural gas drillers in
Pennsylvania were found to have shipped toxic and radioactive
hydraulic fracking waste water to sewage treatment plants that
were not properly equipped to treat it. From there, it was
dispersed into rivers and streams which provide drinking water
to millions of people.
What's the Best Option for Safe, Pure Water?
There’s no doubt about it: Safe, pure water is becoming
increasingly difficult to come by, even in otherwise affluent,
developed nations. For most people, regardless of where you
live, purifying the water you drink is more a necessity than a
choice. By this I do NOT mean resorting to bottled water from
your supermarket. Bottled water is typically nothing more than
bottled tap water that may or may not have received additional
filtration, and the federal testing requirements for bottled
water are actually more lax than those for communal water
supplies.
One of the best alternatives to the tap may be finding a
gravity-fed raw spring in your area—barring contamination from
nearby agriculture or fracking operations, that is. Fortunately,
natural springs are often monitored by the local municipalities
for contaminants.
Natural spring water is naturally filtered by the earth and
is "living water," in the same way that raw food is "living
food," which is why it's some of the most healthful water on the
planet. Before you dismiss this idea because you think there are
no such springs in your neck of the woods, there is a Web site
called FindaSpring.com10
that can help you locate springs in your area.
The next best option is to filter the water that comes out of
your tap, but there are benefits and drawbacks to virtually
every water filtration system on the market. Currently I use a
whole house carbon-based water filtration system. Prior to this
I used reverse osmosis (RO) to purify my water. This
previous article can help you make a decision about the type
of water filtration system that would be best for you and your
family. Since most
water sources are now severely polluted, the issue of water
filtration and purification couldn't be more important.