Saturday, August 11, 2007

Fracing and Water

Originally, Drilling Santa Fe began, "Drilling in Santa Fe County?" with a picture of a fracing crew along the Galisteo Creek. About fracing, from a editorial in the WCMessenger.com, "Depletion: Barnett Shale wells require fracturing of the limestone formation to release the oil and gas trapped within. Water, sand, and hazardous chemicals are injected under high pressure down the drilling hole to fracture the limestone. Each fracing uses between 1.5 and 6 million gallons of fresh water. According to Halliburton at the Petroleum Technology Transfer Council, each well is fraced an average of 17 times." (see related article, "How Halliburton Technology is Wrecking the Rockies" & "EPA to citizens: Frack you" & "The Costs of Fracking")

Consequently, Texas legislation, "Written by Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Arlington, SB 714 would require drillers to report groundwater use for drilling and fracing. This process of forcing sand and water into wells in order to release the gas can use up to 5 million gallons per frac, and as many as 17 fracs for certain kinds of wells. SB 715, also written by Fraser, would require better public notification of proposed injection wells so that the public can participate in the permitting process." DentonRC.com

Other concerns from the Telluride Daily Planet, "Amos said that in 2001 EnCana had a fracking accident less than 100 yards from her home, which blew up her water well 'like a geyser at Yellowstone.' For a time, the company paid for drinking water for her family, then assured her that the well water was fine. Later she became ill and was diagnosed with a rare adrenal gland tumor, which is linked to 2BE, a benzene derivative, and a chemical used by EnCana for fracking."

From a subscriber, "According to the article, a frac can use 5,000,000 gallons of water -- that is more than 15.3 acre feet. Also according to the article, some wells are fraced as many as 17 times, for a total of 260 acre feet of water. Using the County's figure of 0.25 acre feet of use for a normal household/year, fracing one well could use as much water as 1,040 households would use in an entire year!"

*Click on the bold, underlined above to link to articles.


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