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Shallow fracking raises questions for water, new Stanford research shows
https://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/july/fracking_water-jackson-072115.html[font face=Serif]Stanford Report, July 21, 2015
[font size=5]Shallow fracking raises questions for water, new Stanford research shows[/font]
[font size=4]Stanford scientist's investigations show that drinking water sources may be threatened by thousands of shallow oil and gas wells mined with the controversial process of hydraulic fracturing. A new study suggests safeguards.[/font]
By Rob Jordan
Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
[font size=3]The United States now produces about as much crude oil as Saudi Arabia does, and enough natural gas to export in large quantities. That's thanks to hydraulic fracturing, a mining practice that involves a rock-cracking pressurized mix of water, sand and chemicals.
Ongoing research by Stanford environmental scientist Rob Jackson attempts to minimize the risks of "fracking" to underground drinking water sources.
The most recent such study, published in Environmental Science & Technology, finds that at least 6,900 oil and gas wells in the U.S. were fracked less than a mile (5,280 feet) from the surface, and at least 2,600 wells were fracked at depths shallower than 3,000 feet, some as shallow as 100 feet. This occurs despite many reports that describe fracking as safe for drinking water only if it occurs at least thousands of feet to a mile underground, according to Jackson.
…
For example, Arkansas had more than 300 wells fracked shallower than 3,000 feet, using an average of 5 million gallons of water and chemicals. Other states that fracked wells shallower than 3,000 feet using more than a million gallons each included New Mexico (16), Texas (10), Pennsylvania (seven) and California (two).
…[/font][/font]
[font size=5]Shallow fracking raises questions for water, new Stanford research shows[/font]
[font size=4]Stanford scientist's investigations show that drinking water sources may be threatened by thousands of shallow oil and gas wells mined with the controversial process of hydraulic fracturing. A new study suggests safeguards.[/font]
By Rob Jordan
Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
[font size=3]The United States now produces about as much crude oil as Saudi Arabia does, and enough natural gas to export in large quantities. That's thanks to hydraulic fracturing, a mining practice that involves a rock-cracking pressurized mix of water, sand and chemicals.
Ongoing research by Stanford environmental scientist Rob Jackson attempts to minimize the risks of "fracking" to underground drinking water sources.
The most recent such study, published in Environmental Science & Technology, finds that at least 6,900 oil and gas wells in the U.S. were fracked less than a mile (5,280 feet) from the surface, and at least 2,600 wells were fracked at depths shallower than 3,000 feet, some as shallow as 100 feet. This occurs despite many reports that describe fracking as safe for drinking water only if it occurs at least thousands of feet to a mile underground, according to Jackson.
…
For example, Arkansas had more than 300 wells fracked shallower than 3,000 feet, using an average of 5 million gallons of water and chemicals. Other states that fracked wells shallower than 3,000 feet using more than a million gallons each included New Mexico (16), Texas (10), Pennsylvania (seven) and California (two).
…[/font][/font]