UT team will take close look at fracking

[white cloud]

By TOM FOWLER
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
May 6, 2011, 11:07PM

To many in the natural gas industry, hydraulic fracturing is a safe practice that has never had an adverse effect on drinking water.

To many in the environmental community, fracking is a clear threat that has already poisoned many water wells.

To University of Texas geologist Chip Groat, the truth is likely a lot less simple than either side believes.

Groat, the former head of the U.S. Geological Society under the Clinton and second Bush administrations, will head a study by an interdisciplinary team at the university that will review the science, policy and perceptions surrounding fracking.

The project, which will be formally announced Monday, will combine an independent assessment of alleged groundwater contamination and seismic events some have attributed to fracking shale formations with a detailed analysis of the scope and effectiveness of laws and regulations.

There have been incidents, Groat said — from claims of water contamination in Pennsylvania, where gas drilling is relatively new, to reports of earthquakes in Arkansas and Texas, where the industry is better established. But the depth of investigations into such incidents is varied and reporting on them incomplete.

Polarized views
To many in the natural gas industry, hydraulic fracturing is a safe practice that has never had an adverse effect on drinking water.

To many in the environmental community, fracking is a clear threat that has already poisoned many water wells.

To University of Texas geologist Chip Groat, the truth is likely a lot less simple than either side believes.

Groat, the former head of the U.S. Geological Society under the Clinton and second Bush administrations, will head a study by an interdisciplinary team at the university that will review the science, policy and perceptions surrounding fracking.

The project, which will be formally announced Monday, will combine an independent assessment of alleged groundwater contamination and seismic events some have attributed to fracking shale formations with a detailed analysis of the scope and effectiveness of laws and regulations.

There have been incidents, Groat said — from claims of water contamination in Pennsylvania, where gas drilling is relatively new, to reports of earthquakes in Arkansas and Texas, where the industry is better established. But the depth of investigations into such incidents is varied and reporting on them incomplete.

Polarized views
To many in the natural gas industry, hydraulic fracturing is a safe practice that has never had an adverse effect on drinking water.

To many in the environmental community, fracking is a clear threat that has already poisoned many water wells.

To University of Texas geologist Chip Groat, the truth is likely a lot less simple than either side believes.

Groat, the former head of the U.S. Geological Society under the Clinton and second Bush administrations, will head a study by an interdisciplinary team at the university that will review the science, policy and perceptions surrounding fracking.

The project, which will be formally announced Monday, will combine an independent assessment of alleged groundwater contamination and seismic events some have attributed to fracking shale formations with a detailed analysis of the scope and effectiveness of laws and regulations.

There have been incidents, Groat said — from claims of water contamination in Pennsylvania, where gas drilling is relatively new, to reports of earthquakes in Arkansas and Texas, where the industry is better established. But the depth of investigations into such incidents is varied and reporting on them incomplete.

Polarized views
>>>>>>>> more
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/energy/7554373.html

[sonias]

1. You know that the gas industry will dispute the findings no matter what

And the nutbags in the Lege who think Benzene is just peachy won't give a damn either.

This is science after all and they don't believe anything that's not written up in the bible.

When water becomes contaminated and scarce - it's an act of God.

I just hope that the project does in fact develop a good sound study. I wouldn't put it past the gas industry to cut off their funding somehow. You know pay the university not to do it. Would not be the least surprised if they did find a way to stifle the study. Or to influence the results just like the story said. UT is an oil and gas school - would they bite the hand that feeds it?

:shrug:

[white cloud]

2. Yep

Be just like BP that has spending several Million dollar to buy off some of the Marine Ecology Prof people along the Gulf Coast and especially Tulane and NO colleges

We got some RWN people in South Lake, Flower Mound, Coppell, area having a fit "Not in my backyard" Moratorium on drilling and pipeline. lol

[plumbob]

3. Never forgetting that the Permanent University Fund is enriched by

billions in royalty revenue.

Will Groat dare nip at the hand that feeds UT and A&M?

[sonias]

4. Scientific Study Links Flammable Drinking Water to Fracking

Pro-Publica 5/9/11

Scientific Study Links Flammable Drinking Water to Fracking

For the first time, a scientific study has linked natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing with a pattern of drinking water contamination so severe that some faucets can be lit on fire.

The peer-reviewed study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, stands to shape the contentious debate over whether drilling is safe and begins to fill an information gap that has made it difficult for lawmakers and the public to understand the risks.

The research was conducted by four scientists at Duke University. They found that levels of flammable methane gas in drinking water wells increased to dangerous levels when those water supplies were close to natural gas wells. They also found that the type of gas detected at high levels in the water was the same type of gas that energy companies were extracting from thousands of feet underground, strongly implying that the gas may be seeping underground through natural or manmade faults and fractures, or coming from cracks in the well structure itself.

“Our results show evidence for methane contamination of shallow drinking water systems in at least three areas of the region and suggest important environmental risks accompanying shale gas exploration worldwide,” the article states.

Looks like Duke beat UT to the punch. :shrug:

[sonias]

5. Water Near Shale-Gas Fracking Sites Polluted, a Study Says

Yahoo News 5/10/11
Water Near Shale-Gas Fracking Sites Polluted, a Study Says

When I traveled through northeastern Pennsylvania in March for my TIME cover story on shale natural gas, it wasn't hard to find unhappy homeowners like Sherry Vargason. Vargason, who lives on a cattle farm in rural Bradford County, has leased her land for shale-gas exploration, and a well was drilled a few hundred feet from her front door. Not long after, she began to experience problems with her water, which comes from an underground well on her property. It turned out she had unusually high levels of methane in her water - so high, in fact, that it posed an explosive threat to her home.

Methane is the main component of natural gas, and Vargason naturally connected the methane in her water to the gas operation just outside her home. But though the gas company installed a venting system on her well to reduce methane buildup, they denied there was any connection between drilling and contamination - a position the industry as a whole has maintained for years. "Unless you can prove how the contamination came, you can't do anything about it," Vargason told me. (See "Frack: Is Shale Natural Gas Worse for the Climate than Coal?")

As it turns out, however, that proof may not be so elusive. A new study published in the May 9 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) shows that methane levels in water wells near shale-gas hydrofracking sites is 17 times higher than they are in wells that are far from shale-gas operations. The peer-reviewed paper is the first independent scientific confirmation of something advocates, environmentalists and homeowners have passionately argued, and that the gas industry has vociferously denied. "We found a clear relationship between how near someone's drinking water was to a gas well and the concentration of methane in the water," says Robert Jackson, the director of Duke University's Center on Global Change and a co-author of the PNAS study.

:kick: