(*What the Frack?  Research indicates that you have to use some variant of this pun in any discussion of the topic.  Sorry.)

There has been a lot of interest lately in the implications of increased use of hydraulic fracturing technology in gas and oil bearing shales to enable extraction of stocks of gas or oil that are not recoverable by conventional means.  First, what is hydraulic fracturing?

A really good introduction (with some industry and scientific jargon) is a paper written by ALL Consulting of Tulsa, OK.  In part, they say that-

The process of hydraulic fracturing as typically used for shale gas development involves the pumping of tens of thousands of barrels of sand laden water into the target shale zone. Fluids pumped into the shale creates fractures or openings through which the sand flows, at the same time the sand acts to prop open the fractures that have been created. Once the pumping of fluids has stopped the sand remains in place allowing fluids (both gas and water) to flow back to the wellbore.

A quicker overview was made by an intern from Cornell University in this PowerPoint presentation on fracking for the Broome County, NY county health department.

While we need natural gas, we also need clean water, and must protect our surface and ground water from both pollution and depletion as oil and gas reserves are extracted.  This presents challenges everywhere you might drill a well, and there are some particular implications for drilling in the Antrim shales in northern Michigan.  These challenges are made all the more difficult because fracking fluids are specifically exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act, at the urging of (wait for it!) VP Cheney!!  What a shock, huh?

In a February 18, 2010   memo to Energy & Environment sub-committee members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Chairman Henry A. Waxman and Subcommittee Chairman Edward J. Markey point out some of their concerns with fracking, including the exemption from EPA oversight.

In 2005, Congress exempted hydraulic fracturing from regulation under the SDWA as part of the Energy Policy Act.18 Many dubbed this provision the “Halliburton loophole” because of Halliburton’s ties to then-Vice President Cheney and its role as one of the largest providers of hydraulic fracturing services. Specifically, Congress modified the definition of “underground injection” to exclude “the underground injection of fluids or propping agents (other than diesel fuels) pursuant to hydraulic fracturing operations related to oil, gas, or geothermal production activities.” As a result of this exemption, EPA cannot use the SDWA to regulate hydraulic fracturing unless it can show the use of diesel fuels.

Environmental groups, public health officials, and communities across the country have raised other concerns about hydraulic fracturing, beyond potential impacts on drinking water. In Texas, state regulators are responding to tests showing high levels of benzene in the air near wells in the Barnett Shale gas fields. In Pennsylvania, state regulators are facing a new challenge of how to ensure proper disposal of the millions of gallons of wastewater generated from natural gas development in the Marcellus Shale. In New York, the state Department of Environmental Conservation analyzed wastewater extracted from wells and found levels of radium-226 as high as 267 times the limit safe for discharge into the environment and thousands of times the limit safe for people to drink. Others have raised concerns about water scarcity, since the drilling and hydraulic fracturing of a horizontal shale gas well may require 2 to 4 million gallons of water.

This is a big issue when it comes to water here in Michigan.  Most gas bearing shales don’t produce as much water as the Antrim “play” during extraction, in part because the Antrim formation is shallow, only 200 feet below the surface in some areas, and less than 2500 feet everywhere.  Most other gas bearing shale formations are thousands or tens of thousands of feet below the surface.  The Antrim is already naturally fractured to a good extent, yet still needs additional fracking.  And fracking isn’t a one and done procedure.  It will need to be re-fracked several times to keep production up, and with the water present in the formation it probably won’t hit peak production volumes for a year or more after fracking, while the fracking fluids and the natural water, bearing a variety of chemicals and NORMs (Naturally Occuring Radioactive Materials), are pumped out to allow the gas to flow.  All of this water has to be treated, which means hundreds or thousands of trips over the surrounding roads with big tank trucks, or pipelines.  Municipal water treatment plants aren’t set up to deal with this type of pollution (and in the case of fracking fluids, they won’t even know exactly what is there due to “trade secrets”) so often drillers seek to inject the polluted water deep underground and forget about it.  Doesn’t sound like a good idea to me.  Recycling and re-use sounds better, and would lessen the demands on local water supplies (aquifers, streams, lakes) as well.

And the demand on local water resources will be phenomenal.  Horizontal bore fracking uses lots of water, as was pointed out in the congressional memo above.  According to the Michigan Public Service Commission web site there were 9700 producing wells in the Antrim play in 2008.  If we add just a few thousand that aren’t producing, but will with fracking we can easily imagine 10,000 wells working at a time.  If they all are fracked every few years, to the tune of 4 million gallons of water each time, we are talking about a whole lot of water that won’t be available to drinking wells, irrigation wells, rivers, streams and lakes.

The area’s major river is the Jordan, Michigan’s first wild and scenic river.  According to the USGS, the 40 year average mean daily flow in East Jordan ranges from 218 cubic feet per second in April to 171 cfs during July and August.  My back-of-an-envelope math translates that into about 14.77 million cfs/day.  One cfs = 7.48 gallons per second.  That’s about 110.5 million gallons per day (if my math is good.  YMMV.)  So fracking 27 wells would use the equivalent of all the water that flows through the town of East Jordan in a day.  Fracking 10,000 wells would use more water than flows through the river in East Jordan in a year.

And that is each time they are fracked, and we know that they will need to be given repeated treatments to keep the gas flowing.

We need natural gas.  But in northern Michigan, we need abundant, clean, cold, water more.  Pollute that water, or seriously reduce the volume available, and our regional ecology, quality of life, and our number one industry, tourism suffer proportionally.

Until we have rock solid rules and procedures in place to safely monitor and regulate hydraulic fracturing, it isn’t a practice we should accept.  Until we have assurances that our water resources won’t suffer, either through pollution from extracted water and fracking fluids or excessive de-watering of our aquifers and surface waters, hydraulic fracturing is a gamble we can’t afford to take.