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To Frack or Not to Frack - A Question Not Asked

To Frack or Not to Frack - A Question Not Asked. Challenges in Water Pollution Control Engineering – Bethel - 1963. Bethel outlines engineering challenges brought on by innovation in knowledge, technology, and financial change: Familiarity with new methods

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To Frack or Not to Frack - A Question Not Asked

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  1. To Frack or Not to Frack-A Question Not Asked

  2. Challenges in Water Pollution Control Engineering – Bethel - 1963 • Bethel outlines engineering challenges brought on by innovation in knowledge, technology, and financial change: • Familiarity with new methods • Obtaining information form operating personnel • Recognizing the importance of additional design • Maintaining good public relations • Participation in the legal and financial aspects of the new processes • Fracking – challenges the regulator/engineer on all these fronts

  3. Water Pollution Issues

  4. Sources of Water Pollution in “Fracking” • 2-4 Million gallons of water per well – estimates are that annual water use is in range of 70 – 140 Billion gallons (about what 5,000,000 people need annually) • Out of 2500 chemicals used in fracturing 650 are know to be carcinogenic. • Produced water – the water that flows back up is 25- 100% of what is injected into the ground – needs to be stored and treated • Dissolved Methane (biggest component of NG) is a pollutant.

  5. The Good News!

  6. Production from the Barnett Field

  7. Since 1997 More Than 13,500 Wells Completed in the Barnett Shale

  8. But- We’re OK Because This Is Regulated, Right? • Clean Air Act – most oil and gas production sites are not required to obtain a Title V permit – because their emissions are below the size limit – thus not regulated • Clean Water Act – exploration, production, processing of oil and gas, process, or treatment operations – exempt (the so called Halliburton Loophole) • Safe Drinking Water Act – the underground injection of fluids…other than diesel oil…are not considered regulated underground injection for the purposes of this act • RCRA, CERCLA, EPCRA – all the have some form of exemptions.

  9. Conclusion • Fracking is growing very rapidly and will continue to do so • It is largely unregulated – at the Federal level • Most new techno advances made by industry – regulator needs to run to catch up • Information is tightly held- “intellectual property” – end result is that regulator and people need sites don’t know what is being put in the environment • Technical improvement is possible – but not without regulation (supposition on my part) • Public Relations – poor – see Gasland • The companies are in the forefront of the legal and financial implications of fracking – regulator needs to catch up • Personal comment – I don’t want to kill the golden goose – I do want to keep it from drowning in its own waste.

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