[Ssaninfo] Fracking Fluids May Migrate to Aquifers, Researcher Says

[Christian Stalberg]

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Fracking Fluids May Migrate to Aquifers, Researcher Says

By Jim Efstathiou Jr. - May 3, 2012 

Chemically treated drilling fluid can migrate through thousands of feet of
rock and endanger water supplies, said a hydrologist whose research calls
into question the safety of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas. 

The fluids can migrate faster that previously thought, Tom Myers, a Reno,
Nevada, researcher, said yesterday. His study, published in the online
journal Ground Water
<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gwat.2012.50.issue-3/issuetoc>
on April 17, says fluids can reach shallow drinking-water aquifers in as
little as three years. 

"If contaminants reach natural fractures under pressure, the upward flow has
the potential to be enhanced greatly," Myers
<http://water.nv.gov/hearings/past/dry/browseable/exhibits%5CACE%5CInitial%2
0Evidentiary%20Exchange/Exhibit%201102.pdf> , an independent consultant who
has worked for conservation groups and governments, said. "It can flow
upward if there's a pathway and unless it's completely impermeable, there's
always a pathway. It's just a question of how long it takes." 

The safety of water supplies is a key concern of critics of fracking, a
drilling technique in which water, chemicals and sand are pumped deep
underground to free trapped natural gas. Fracking, which has boosted
supplies and sent prices to their lowest in a decade, is being investigated
by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency <http://www.epa.gov/>  for
possible impacts on water. 

Drillers say there has been no documented case of fluids reaching drinking
water. 


Commissioned by Environmentalists 


Gas industry officials were quick to point out that the study was
commissioned by Catskill Mountainkeeper
<http://www.catskillmountainkeeper.org/> , a Youngsville, New York-based
environmental group that opposes fracking, and The Park Foundation in
Ithaca, which offers research grants. Computer models used by Myers contain
errors that skew his results, according to Terry Engelder, professor of
geosciences at The Pennsylvania State University
<http://topics.bloomberg.com/pennsylvania-state-university/>  in University
<http://topics.bloomberg.com/university-park/> Park. 

"This is considered settled science," Simon Lomax, research director for
Energy in Depth <http://www.energyindepth.org/> , a Washington-based
industry group, said in an interview. "There are thousands of feet of rock
between deep-shale formations and shallow aquifers, and it's precisely that
barrier that keeps these fluids miles away from shallow drinking-water
sources." 

Catskill Mountainkeeper commissioned the study after a 2009 finding by New
York regulators that fracking fluid couldn't migrate into drinking water,
according to Ramsay Adams, executive director of the environmental group.
The New York Department of Environmental Conservation
<http://www.dec.ny.gov/>  is drafting rules for hydraulic fracturing and has
so far not allowed the drilling technique. 


New York Water 


The Myers study bolsters the group's claim that fracking isn't safe for New
York <http://topics.bloomberg.com/new-york/>  state, home to unfiltered
aquifers that provide water to New York
<http://topics.bloomberg.com/new-york-city/> City and Syracuse. 

"We know less about what's underground than we know what's at the bottom of
the deepest oceans," Adams said in an interview. "That blanket statement
that there's this impermeable wall that will keep these chemicals down there
is false and it changes everything." 

While New York regulators are reviewing the Myers study, they have concluded
that "no significant adverse impact to water resources is likely to occur
due to underground vertical migration of fracturing fluids," Emily DeSantis,
a department spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. "The high salinity of native
water in the Marcellus and other Devonian shales is also evidence that fluid
has been trapped in the pore spaces for hundreds of millions of years,
implying that there is no mechanism for the movement of fluids between
formations." 


Computer Model 


Myers used computer models to predict how fracking fluid will react in the
Marcellus Shale after it is used to shatter rock and free trapped gas. He
found that a process in which water migrates through naturally occurring
faults over tens of thousands of years may be accelerated by fracking. 

The Marcellus formation, which stretches from New York to Tennessee
<http://topics.bloomberg.com/tennessee/> , may hold enough gas to supply the
U.S. for three years. Over 4,000 wells have been drilled by fracking in
Pennsylvania <http://topics.bloomberg.com/pennsylvania/>  since 2009. 

Engelder said Myers used an "unrealistically high" number for permeability
of rock above the shale layer that contains gas. That produced results that
greatly exaggerated the time it could take for fluid to migrate from the
fracking zone. 

Myers also assumed that pressures created by fracking will drive fluids away
from the gas-bearing rock when in fact they will do the opposite, Engelder
said. 

"In my view the issue is settled, which is that it can't happen on a time
scale that is important to mankind," Engelder said in an interview. 


Chances 'Remote' 


A report
<http://www.shalegas.energy.gov/resources/081811_90_day_report_final.pdf>
last year from a task force <http://topics.bloomberg.com/task-force/>  named
by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu found that while fracking poses
environmental risks "the likelihood of properly injected fracturing fluid
reaching drinking water through fractures is remote." 

A study last year by consultants ICF International
<http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/ICFI:US> (ICFI) for New York found that
layers of sandstone between shale formations and aquifers assure that
fracking in New York poses no "foreseeable risk" to drinking water. 

Myers said drillers should map fracking zones for the presence of faults,
and use monitoring wells to track hydrology before fracking begins. 

"I am suggesting that over a 50 to 100 year time period, that we could be
creating lots of places where this stuff could come out," Myers said. "I
don't think you've found a dedicated monitoring well anywhere." 

To contact the reporter on this story: Jim Efstathiou Jr. in New York at
jefstathiou at bloomberg.net 

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at
jmorgan97 at bloomberg.net 

R2012 BLOOMBERG L.P. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 
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