{"id":542,"date":"2011-06-03T20:04:52","date_gmt":"2011-06-03T23:04:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.trepa.org\/?p=542"},"modified":"2011-06-03T20:13:05","modified_gmt":"2011-06-03T23:13:05","slug":"shale-gas-fracking-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trepa.org\/?p=542","title":{"rendered":"Shale gas & fracking report"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following report and links were sent to TREPA by Geoffrey May, Box 47, Margaree Harbour, B0E 2B0. It is quite comprehensive and the many links provide additional information to back up his statements. Minor changes for clarification purposes have been made. Also note that all links may not still be connected as organizations that put them up may also take them down after a period of time.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Council of Scientific Society Presidents, which represents 1.4 million scientists from more than 150 scientific disciplines, reported to the Obama administration in May 2010, \u201csome energy bridges that are currently encouraged in the transition from GHG-emitting fossil energy systems have received inadequate scientific analysis before implementation, and these may have greater GHG emissions and environmental costs than often appreciated.\u201d<\/em> The development of unconventional gas from shale deposits, the Council warns, is an \u201cexample where policy has preceded adequate scientific study.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

This warning, delivered over a year ago to the US President, should have attracted some attention in Nova Scotia as it demolishes the baseless assumptions contained in the Provincial Energy Plan, that natural gas is a \u201ctransitional\u201d<\/em> fuel to a low carbon future. This assumption was never based on science, but rather, only a PR pitch from the fossil fuel industry. \u00a0It is truly appalling that the absurd ideas forwarded by T. Boone Pickens and a morally bankrupt fossil fuel industry would have been accepted as gospel with the government departments charged with preventing the exact sorts of damage that is part and parcel of unconventional natural gas development.<\/p>\n

The entire shale gas industry has been based on simplistic, obviously flawed assumptions, which North American regulators should have recognized. Sadly it is not the only false assumption of this industry; it is, however, the key to the industries’ success in turning governments into co-conspirators against the interests of their citizens and our environment. What was clear to science in May of 2010 received empirical support with the publication of the Robert Howarth Study published in the peer review journal Climatic Change Letters<\/em>.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.eeb.cornell.edu\/howarth\/Howarth%20et%20al%20%202011.pdf <\/a><\/p>\n

The Howarth study comes shortly after the US EPA doubled its estimates for escaping methane from hydraulic fracturing operations and shows that, cradle to grave, unconventional sources of natural gas have 20 percent greater impact on climate than burning coal. The lie that it is a bridge fuel is now clear as day; unconventional gas is a bridge to nowhere.<\/p>\n

Another peer reviewed science journal, The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/em>, published a study by Stephen Osborn et al atDuke University.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/108\/20\/8067<\/a><\/p>\n

Beyond showing a direct correlation between hydraulic fracturing and methane contamination of nearby (within 1 km) water wells, the fact that it occurs so routinely, shows that industry assumptions that leaks only happen from poor well construction are cast into disrepute. The study showed that \u00a0the wells tested were contaminated with methane, and that the methane was NOT organic in nature, \u00a0as industry shills bleat. \u00a0The Duke study \u00a0supports the experience of the Quebec Ministry of Natural Resources, which found 19 out of 31 \u00a0gas wells \u00a0were leaking.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/technology\/story\/2011\/01\/05\/shale-quebec-bape.html<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the study\u2019s authors was quoted in propublica, \u201cWe certainly didn\u2019t expect to see such a strong relationship between the concentration of methane in water and the nearest gas wells. That was a real surprise,\u201d<\/em> said Robert Jackson, a biology professor at Duke and one of the report\u2019s authors.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/scientific-study-links-flammable-drinking-water-to-fracking\/single#republish<\/a><\/p>\n

In the spring of 2011, we now have what was missing when the province issued gas and oil leases — peer reviewed science demonstrating that when it comes down to it, the gas industry has been oblivious to the damage they do, largely because they did bother to question their own rosy assumptions, and neither did the staff at the Nova Scotia Department of Energy, or the Nova Scotia Department of the Environment, whos approach to gas development has been \u00a0typified by intentional ignorance. This \u201cSee No Evil \u201d<\/em> approach resulted in completely false statements and patronizing tone of the \u201cFact Sheet\u201d<\/em> accompanying the announcement of the review. \u00a0The alleged \u201cfact sheet\u201d<\/em> is nothing of the kind; it is a political document with nothing but misleading \u00a0assumptions stating \u201cWe will continue to learn from the experiences of other jurisdictions, like British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, where they have successfully managed the regulation of hydraulic fracturing. Close to half a million wells have been hydraulically fractured in these three provinces without any incidents noted\u201d<\/em>. That statement is truly appalling, as any attempt to fact check with Google would \u00a0have shown numerous reports of fracking disasters, dating back to December 2005 when the Edmonton Journal<\/em> reported on damage to water supplies around Rosebud, Alberta. The disinterest in the consequences of fracking are well demonstrated since the CBC aired the documentary Burning Water<\/em>, chronicling the destruction of Fiona and Peter Lauridson\u2019s ranching dreams from hydraulic fracturing<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/documentaries\/passionateeyeshowcase\/2010\/burningwater\/in October 2010<\/a><\/p>\n

Jessica Ernst of Rosebud Alberta who has Hexavalentchromium (Chromium-6 ) in her water, has launched a $30 million dollar law suit against EnCana, the regulator, and the Alberta government. We can see the pattern of promoter\/regulator, industry\/ government at work in Nova Scotia as well, where citizen concerns are ignored, and the Nova Scotia Department of Energy bends over backwards to assist the gas industry in keeping their leases, and acts as a propaganda arm of the oil and gas industry against the interests of Nova Scotian’s. \u00a0Regarding Chromium \u20136, this is the same chemical that was the subject of the law suit which was popularized in the movie \u201cErin Brockovich\u201d<\/em>. \u00a0Ms. Brockovich is currently assisting 40 landowners in Midland Texas dealing with a Chromium-6 plume contaminating their water from a fracking operation there.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.ernstversusencana.ca\/<\/a><\/p>\n

British Columbia has also had reported incidents. Eighteen cases of fracking communication incidents were reported to the British Columbia Oil and Gas Commission. \u00a0A communication incident is where fracking materials injected in one gas well \u201cpop up\u201d in other gas wells. What is especially significant about the incidents, is that the frackers did not anticipate, or even think it possible, for the successful communication to occur, or else they would not have done it! The decade of fracking has shown time after time, that industries assumptions, down the line, are all wrong.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/thetyee.ca\/News\/2010\/10\/15\/FrackingDisaster\/<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the horrors of hydraulic fracturing which government review has not included, is the air quality issues. This is link to a video of a compressor station, shot in infrared, showing escaping gases. From a Huffington Press<\/em> report on air quality issues from fracking in Wyoming — \u201cPreliminary data show ozone levels last Wednesday got as high as 124 parts per billion. That’s two-thirds higher than the Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum healthy limit of 75 parts per billion and above the worst day in Los Angeles all last year, 114 parts per billion, according to EPA records. Ozone levels in the basin reached 116 on March 1 and 104 on Saturday\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em> http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2011\/03\/08\/wyoming-ait-pollution-gas-drilling_n_833027.html <\/a><\/p>\n

The Howarth study, also demonstrates that the smog generated from gas development can drift 200 miles. \u201cNatural Gas Operations From a Public Health Perspective\u201d will be published this fall in the International Journal of Human and Ecological Risk Assessment \u00a0by Theo Colburn et al, examines the effects on air quality from not only fracking but other drilling activities. http:\/\/www.endocrinedisruption.com\/files\/Oct2011HERA10-48forweb3-3-11.pdf . The study also provides a list of chemicals used and produced in drilling and fracking.<\/p>\n

If our government is serious about reviewing the impacts of fracking, it should interview Dr. Anthony Ingraffea; he holds a PhD in Rock Fracture Mechanics. Dr. Ingraffea points out that fracking is really re-fracturing existing fractures and that when the pressurized friction reducers reach a joint system, the joints open \u00a0in unpredictable ways. \u00a0Dr. \u00a0Ingraffea also points out that despite industry\u2019s claim that fracking is a sixty year old practice, that its use in recovering unconventional gas is dependent on a series of technologies only developed in the past decade. Dr. Ingraffea \u00a0also points out that there is no stable state of fracking technology, in other words, the industry is constantly tweaking their methods and materials in response to the situations they encounter. This is the reason that there are so many different formulations of fracking fluids. “Slickwater\u201d fracking was first used in 1996, and since then formulations \u00a0have been worked and reworked, with no regard for anything but production of gas. Workers performing maintenance on abandoned wells will have no idea what products were used in the frack.<\/p>\n

Reading from page 12 of the Colburn study \u201cFor many years, drillers have insisted that they do not use toxic chemicals to drill for gas, only guar gum, mud, and sand. While much attention is being given to chemicals used during fracking, our findings indicate that drilling chemicals can be equally, if not more dangerous. What we have learned about the chemicals used in the Crosby well blowout provides insight into why citizens living nearby suffered severe respiratory distress, nausea, and vomiting and had to be evacuated from their homes for several days. It might also shed light on why other individuals living near gas operations have experienced similar symptoms during the gas drilling phase (prior tofracking). From the first day the drill bit is inserted into the ground until the well is completed, toxic materials are introduced into the borehole and returned to the surface along with produced water and other extraction liquids.\u201d<\/em> So the threat to public health exists even in the absence of \u201cfracking\u201d.<\/p>\n

Those \u201cother extracted fluids \u201c include an array of very toxic naturally occurring materials, which are unnaturally released into the environment by the fracking process. Chris Gobbel of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources —\u201dThe fluid chemistry and toxicity is really driven by the naturally occurring chemicals that are coming up at toxic levels in the return flow, it brings up dissolved hydrocarbons, Benzene Thylene Ethylbenzene and Xylene isomers being then four typically focussed on. It brings up heavy metals, it can bring up radionucleutides including Radium 226 and other naturally occurring materials that are \u00a0at toxic levels at the surface, and of course you have the additives.\u201d<\/em> Grobbels also mentions the \u00a0air quality issues, \u201cThat means \u00a0greenhouse gases,acid rain causing gases, asthma causing particulates are all \u00a0associated with fracking\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>http:\/\/www.waterlink-international.com\/news\/id1297 Fracking_Water_Quality_Concerns.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Newsweek Magazine,<\/em> August 20, 2008, carried a report on the effect of fracking fluids on emergency room nurse Cathy Behr. Behr was treating an injured gas worker, whos clothing had been splashed with fracking fluids while other hospital staff initiated quarantine protocol. Two days later, Behr was admitted to Mercy Regional Medical Center ICU, with erratic blood counts, swollen liver and lungs filling with fluid. Her doctors described her condition was \u201dentirely consistent with exposure to all the information we were able to gather\u201d<\/em> (MDS Sheet for Zetaflow).<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/tag\/cathy-behr.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Another incident that attracted attention was in Avella Pennsylvania. Reported in Vanity Fair\u2019s Colossal Fracking Mess<\/em>, a report of a \u00a0wastewater impoundment that caught fire, and exploded, sending a 200 foot conflagration into the sky which burned for six hours. An EPA accredited laboratory found arsenic at 6,430 times acceptable levels, and Tetrachlorothene at 1,417 permissible levels .<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/business\/features\/2010\/06\/fracking-in-pennsylvania-201006<\/a><\/p>\n

I would also recommend reading Ben Parfitt\u2019s report for the Munk School, Fracture Lines.<\/em> As you will see, Mr. Parfitt makes numerous recommendations for actions aimed at monitoring the environmental consequences of fracking. Monitoring is not protecting, and what is increasingly clear, there is no protection from fracking\u2019s negative consequences.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/beta.images.theglobeandmail.com\/archive\/00942\/Fractured_Lines_942842a.pdf
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

I am greatly concerned by the behaviour of the company that the Nova Scotia Department of Energy has granted the Ainslie Bloc Lease. I have attended two presentations by company president \u00a0Neal Mednick, and drilling supervisor Ed Ferco, regarding their plans for drilling on Lake Ainslie\u2019s western shore. Not only were they unaware of the legacy of fracking across North America, \u00a0they were incredulous at the idea that gas and oil drilling could cause any problems at all. Mednick equated the risk of damaging Lake Ainslie as equal to the risk of a plane crashing in the Lake, a \u00a0\u201cone in a billion\u201d chance. And, on both occasions, both gentlemen made numerous statements that were known to be untrue, demonstrating a dangerous combination of dishonesty and disinterest.<\/p>\n

The government attitude isn\u2019t reassuring. The lease\u2019s name is that of Nova Scotia\u2019s largest freshwater lake, part of Nova Scotia\u2019s longest river system, recognized for its special environmental and cultural values as a Canadian Heritage River. Lake Ainslie supports an important local freshwater commercial fishery, and provincially important sport fishery, and feeds into the Margaree River with it\u2019s international significant Salmon sports fishery. The area\u2019s economy is based on forestry, fishing, agriculture and tourism, all of which are incompatible with shale gas industry. \u00a0Thousands of livelihoods \u00a0are placed \u00a0at risk from imposing heavy industry on this bucolic landscape.<\/p>\n

Beyond the issuance of the lease, Department of Energy staff have acted as spokesmen for this industry, in the press \u00a0and at public meetings, demonstrating a great lack of intellectual curiosity about the industry they ostensibly regulate. Requests for information are refused, with a referral to Petroworth. Even the announcement of \u00a0this review gave the department further opportunity to propagandize with their unfact sheet, and absurdly claimed that there were no plans to frack, years after they issued the gas leases!<\/p>\n

It is my great hope, that some honest, intelligent person may follow the \u00a0links I have included. My great hope that someone somewhere in the system will act responsibly. Who ever you are, thank you for doing the right thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following report and links were sent to TREPA by Geoffrey May, Box 47, Margaree Harbour, B0E 2B0. It is quite comprehensive and the many links provide additional information to back up his statements. Minor changes for clarification purposes have … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trepa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trepa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trepa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trepa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trepa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=542"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.trepa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":546,"href":"https:\/\/www.trepa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions\/546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trepa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trepa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trepa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}