Tap water contaminated by natural gas results in flammable tap water!

Natural gas is marketed as a relatively clean energy source, but entities drilling for the nonrenewable resource are contaminating drinking water. Apparently, as usual, private companies and local governments seem to be ignoring the problem. Videos and information on the problem can be found at WaterUnderAttack.com. More from The Kitchn:

Natural gas has been advertised as a solution to our nation’s energy problems. But what you aren’t being told is there’s a flurry of under-reported disasters: polluted air, undrinkable water and a rising health crisis. The issue as seen in this video is not natural gas in city water, of course, but natural gas that has seeped into the groundwater and thus into home wells.

Josh Fox has made it his mission to uncover and expose what’s being called “The Red Zone.” Currently, it’s isolated to a few western states in rural areas, but that doesn’t make it any less newsworthy or disheartening, as the efforts to bring this type of drilling all across the US will affect people from the north, south, east and west.

People, plants and animals are still living in these areas but have to truck their own water in. The natural gas companies and city/states in which they live have all turned a cold shoulder and told many citizens that the water is just fine, even though it’s a murky color and lights on fire.

From HeatingOil.com:

According to Infrastructurist, communities from Montana and Texas have been similarly affected by corporate drilling for natural gas. Communities in the eastern US sitting atop the massive Marcellus Shale formation, which stretches from upstate New York down to West Virginia, may also expect their lives—and water mains—to be disrupted. So continues the debate over natural gas, as Americans must decide between the benefits of lower carbon emissions and the downsides of flammable drinking water.

And from NPR (emphasis added):

Some landowners in shale gas areas, however, say the energy and environmental benefits of this new production are outweighed by the environmental risks it raises. NPR’s Jeff Brady documented these issues in a report earlier this year.

Steve Harris, who resides near Dallas, told Brady that he noticed a foul odor coming from his tap water shortly after a gas company used hydraulic fracturing in a natural gas well near his house. Harris said he complained to the drilling company and to state authorities but without result.

“Basically, you get to the point where you think maybe everybody’s working with the gas people and against the little guy,” Harris said.

In 2008, a hydrologist found evidence of benzene contamination in a water well in Wyoming, in the vicinity of a large gas field. Residents near Dimock, Pa., have also complained of contamination of their water supply as a result of gas well drilling in their area. Dimock is in an area of Pennsylvania that sits atop the Marcellus shale formation, one of the largest in the country, and natural gas companies have been active there.

Critics of hydraulic fracturing suspect that the chemicals used in the process have somehow leaked into the groundwater supply. It has been difficult, however, to demonstrate a direct connection between these apparent instances of water pollution and the hydraulic fracturing procedures that have taken place nearby. Industry sources point out that the shale rock subjected to the fracturing is thousands of feet below the surface of the Earth, far below the aquifers that supply drinking water. Many layers of rock are in between. The well bores themselves are shielded from the surrounding earth by steel and cement casing.

Halliburton is fighting to keep the chemicals it uses in hydraulic fracturing secret. From BusinessWeek (emphasis added):

Natural-gas operations are proliferating from Wyoming to New York. At the same time, Halliburton (HAL) and other gas-service giants are fighting to keep secret the potentially hazardous chemicals they use to split thick layers of rock and release the fuel beneath.

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Energy companies are taking a tough stance. Last summer, Houston-based Halliburton threatened to cease natural-gas operations in Colorado if regulators there persisted in demanding the chemical recipe used in a common drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing. Using this method, drillers shoot vast quantities of water, sand, and chemicals into the earth to break up rock and release gas. “A disclosure to members of the public of detailed information…would result in an unconstitutional taking of [Halliburton's intellectual] property,” the company said in a filing to Colorado’s Oil & Gas Conservation Commission. The industry has adopted similar positions in New York, Wyoming, and New Mexico.

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In Colorado, Halliburton recently reached a compromise with regulators, but it’s one that appears to favor the industry. The company agreed in August to disclose the chemicals it uses in hydraulic fracturing to state health officials and regulators, though not to the public. But the agreement applies only to chemicals stored in drums that contain 50 gallons of drilling fluid or more. As a practical matter, drilling workers in Colorado and Wyoming say in interviews that the fluids are often kept in smaller quantities. That means at least some of the ingredients still won’t have to be disclosed. Halliburton didn’t respond to questions about the Colorado compromise.

Regulators “will never get [the chemical data],” predicts Bruce Baizel, a lawyer with the Oil & Gas Accountability Project, a nonprofit in Durango, Colo. “Not unless they are willing to go through a lawsuit.” So far such a suit hasn’t been filed in Colorado—or anywhere else—since regulators have only lately sought to learn more about the effects of hydraulic fracturing.

Three companies—Halliburton, Schlumberger (SLB), and BJ Services (BJS)—control the vast majority of the $15 billion hydraulic-fracturing market. They work as subcontractors for the world’s largest natural-gas developers, including BP (BP), Shell (RDSA), Chesapeake Energy (CHK), and Chevron (CVX). The drillers have zealously refused to reveal the combinations of chemicals they use in fracturing. “It’s like Coke protecting its syrup formula for many of these service companies,” says Scott Rotruck, Chesapeake’s vice-president for corporate development. Chesapeake and its contractors are facing disclosure demands from New York state officials before they can drill in a massive Appalachian gas reserve known as the Marcellus Shale. Schlumberger and BJ Services didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The Bush II Administration exempted hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act (via The Colorado Independent):

Hydraulic fracturing – the subject of so much controversy on Colorado’s Western Slope lately – will be allowed to resume in Susquehanna County, Pa., after state environmental officials said they were satisfied with prevention plans submitted by a Texas company that reported three chemical spills related to the process last month.

Held up by proponents of proposed federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, as yet another example of potential environmental problems associated with the process, the Pennsylvania case has been portrayed as another warning sign in the ongoing natural gas boom in the Mid-Atlantic region’s Marcellus Shale formation.

In Colorado’s heavily drilled Garfield County, commissioners are weighing a resolution supporting federal legislation co-sponsored by Colorado Reps. Diana DeGette and Jared Polis that would remove a Safe Drinking Water Act exemption for fracking that was granted during the Bush administration in 2005.

While some Coloradans are concerned about water quality and wildlife habitat in the Rocky Mountains, opponents of the boom in the Marcellus Shale are worried New York City’s watershedmay be compromised by fracking, which involves injecting water, sand and undisclosed chemicals into tight rock and sand formations to force out more natural gas.

Via the Natural Resources Defense Council, you can tell Congress to protect drinking water from contamination by removing the “Halliburton Loophole” or the hydraulic fracturing exemption within the Safe Drinking Water Act.

More video of tap water contaminated with natural gas:

Follow H.R.2766 or the “Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act of 2009″ here and S. 1215 here.

Natural gas activity within the U.S.:

Image via NPR (click to enlarge)

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