Frack Off

[Conan71]

Contaminated wells go back a long time.  I had an uncle who lived on a farm in Ft. Scott KS (1955 to about 1975), where there was a couple of gas wells back about 3/8 mile from the road - back side of 160 acres.  The water well near the front of the property had methane coming out of it.  There was a water valve at the well house and light the water on fire from gas coming out.  The solution was to pump water into a pond that he made, aerate to get rid of the methane, then run the pond water from that pond into the sand filter and then to house.

Methane is straightforward to deal with and not a cause for alarm, unless you have it at the kitchen faucet and it gets lit up....

I always wondered about "No Smoking" signs hung over a water fountain.

[nathanm]

Methane is straightforward to deal with and not a cause for alarm, unless you have it at the kitchen faucet and it gets lit up....

Sure, and there were even a few places where it happened completely naturally, before we started sticking straws in the ground and sucking. Why aren't we forcing the producers to clean up after themselves, though? They seem to be willing to do a little bit, sometimes, for people who seem like they have enough money to be a pain in the donkey, but that's about it. I think that's what infuriates me the most, that we let these companies run roughshod over the landowners.

The landowners shouldn't be able to prevent extraction of the gas, but they should be able to rely on the driller to not cause any problems beyond surface disruption, and to remediate what problems they do cause. Anything else is corporate welfare.

Not that this is the only problem. You should take a listen to the compressor stations at Dish, TX (the home of free Dish Network satellite TV!). How is it that companies are allowed to get away with noise pollution on that scale?

[heironymouspasparagus]

Sure, and there were even a few places where it happened completely naturally, before we started sticking straws in the ground and sucking. Why aren't we forcing the producers to clean up after themselves, though? They seem to be willing to do a little bit, sometimes, for people who seem like they have enough money to be a pain in the donkey, but that's about it. I think that's what infuriates me the most, that we let these companies run roughshod over the landowners.

The landowners shouldn't be able to prevent extraction of the gas, but they should be able to rely on the driller to not cause any problems beyond surface disruption, and to remediate what problems they do cause. Anything else is corporate welfare.

Not that this is the only problem. You should take a listen to the compressor stations at Dish, TX (the home of free Dish Network satellite TV!). How is it that companies are allowed to get away with noise pollution on that scale?

You know exactly why - it would be an unwarranted government intrusion to require them to clean up their mess.  Like at Picher, OK with the lead mines - that place where Jim Inhofe has made so much of his personal fortune having his "good buddies" (in the truck driver sense of the word) push some tailings around for millions of dollars.  Sidetracked - sorry....

The requirement of personal responsibility - so popular in the dogma of the extremist you-know-who - doesn't really count for the people making those messes.  Go figure.... I don't get it, either.


The gas in this case was from an improperly cased well - two of them - such that when it was pumped, it could migrate through the ground and got to the water well probably 2,000 feet or more away.  Note; most gas wells work by pumping water out to relieve pressure on the formation, allowing gas to come out of solution.  Some people liken it to opening a bottle of shaken up pop.  Maybe...not sure how accurate that is, but makes it easy to understand.  I was pretty young at the time, so didn't really understand how they were working - don't remember an injection well per se, unless they were pumping back and forth alternately between each other.  There were tanks, so maybe just hauling the salt water out.

OERB is doing some clean up - the wait is VERY long.  Better than nothing.

[sauerkraut]

The environmentlists just want another reason to shut down nat. gas drilling.

[Hoss]

The environmentlists just want another reason to shut down nat. gas drilling.

Tell that to the people who can light the water coming out of their faucets...

[dbacks fan]

The environmentlists just want another reason to shut down nat. gas drilling.

Yes, and you just want to fart more kim chi.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Yes, and you just want to fart more kim chi.

Hey!  I wanna fart some more kim chi! 

[Townsend]

Hey!  I wanna fart some more kim chi! 

That statement should open the Summer games.

[Teatownclown]

Lots of news on the Frack lately....In Wyoming, they've determined the formations leak out into the areas where the water tables go....In Cali, they've determined some safe zones free from leaching.

And in Pennsylvania, you might get some greedy college to participate.

Pennsylvania Fracking Law Opens Up Drilling on College Campuses
The state's latest grab for Marcellus Shale money could turn some colleges into industrial zones.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/pennsylvania-fracking-law-opens-drilling-college-campuses

According to the PennEnvironment Research and Policy Center, Pennsylvania drilling companies racked up a total of 3,355 violations of environmental law between 2008 and 2011, 2,392 of which posed a direct threat to the environment and safety of communities.

[heironymouspasparagus]

And the injection wells in Ohio are causing earthquakes.

Gotta love it....

[shadows]

And the injection wells in Ohio are causing earthquakes.

Gotta love it....

Red man didn't read about the mineral rights that should have gone with his allotment.  Now he finds building casinos for the greedy paleface to push little buttons is much cleaner and pays better.

There will be a time to avoid the tragedy that the removal of the under burden in North East Oklahoma will have to be replaced or the we are going to have many changes in land surfaces.  Look at the globe and notice how little is dry land.
   

[heironymouspasparagus]

Red man didn't read about the mineral rights that should have gone with his allotment.  Now he finds building casinos for the greedy paleface to push little buttons is much cleaner and pays better.

There will be a time to avoid the tragedy that the removal of the under burden in North East Oklahoma will have to be replaced or the we are going to have many changes in land surfaces.  Look at the globe and notice how little is dry land.
 

Minerals actually were transferred with the land for the most part.  It was not recognized at that time there might be oil here.  It didn't take long for the white man to figure out how to screw the Indians out of that either.  Lot of that went on in the teen's and twenties.

The difference now is the Indians have teamed up with the mafia (bad-a$$ white men) to learn the tricks of the trade.  "Mineral rights" to the casino gold mines ain't gonna get stolen any time soon this go 'round.


Removal of under burden??  I presume you are talking about the Picher area.  Well, as long as Inhofe is still around, the only thing that might happen there is collapse of the area into the holes.  Not sure how one would go about putting all those tailings back into the ground. 

[shadows]

There is among the archives the age old saying of a bottle of whiskey was considered as fair for the 160 acres with mineral rights paid to the Redman.  Many of the building in Tulsa reflect this procedure used by its leading citizens that acquired fortunes from it in the Glen Pool strike. 

[Teatownclown]

Published on Friday, October 19, 2012 by Common Dreams
Fracking Poisoning Families at Alarming Rate: Report

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/10/19-2

Residents living near gas fracking sites suffer an increasingly high rate of health problems now linked to pollutants used in the gas extraction process, according to a new report released Thursday.

The study, conducted by Earthworks' Oil & Gas Accountability Project, pulled from a survey of 108 Pennsylvania residents in 14 counties, and a series of air and water tests. The results showed close to 70 percent of participants reported an increase in throat irritation and roughly 80 percent suffered from sinus problems after natural gas extraction companies moved to their areas. The symptoms intensify the closer the residents are to the fracking sites.

"We use water for nothing other than flushing the commode," said Janet McIntyre referring to the now toxic levels of water on her land, which neighbors a fracking site. McIntyre said her entire family, including their pets, suffered from a wide array of health problems including projectile vomiting and skin rashes, indicative of other families' symptoms in the areas surveyed. Other symptoms include sinus, respiratory, fatigue, and mood problems.

"Twenty-two households reported that pets and livestock began to have symptoms (such as seizures or losing hair) or suddenly fell ill and died after gas development began nearby," the report finds.

After taking water and air samples, Earthworks detected chemicals that have been linked to oil and gas operations and also directly connected to many of the symptoms reported in the survey on the resident's properties. This study showed a higher concentration of ethylbenzene and xylene, volatile compounds found in petroleum hydrocarbons, at the households as compared to control sites.

"For too long, the oil and gas industry and state regulators have dismissed community members' health complaints as 'false' or 'anecdotal'," said Nadia Steinzor, the project's lead author. "With this research, they cannot credibly ignore communities any longer."

According to a separate report released earlier this month, EPA regulators are having trouble keeping up with the "rapid pace" of shale oil and gas development, due to a lack in resources, staff, data and a number of legal loopholes.

[Townsend]

A First Look At Oklahoma's New Mining Regulations

http://stateimpact.npr.org/oklahoma/2012/11/27/a-first-look-at-oklahomas-new-mining-regulations/

The land above the Arbuckle-Simpson aquifer — perhaps Oklahoma's most sensitive water resource — is dotted with great chasms, some empty, some filled with groundwater that's seeped in.

It's the result of pit mining by mostly out-of-state companies eager to get their hands on the area's rich deposits of silica sand, often used for hydraulic fracturing, and some of finest limestone in the world.

But property owners along Mill Creek, which is fed by the aquifer, are reporting low water levels. The landowners blame the mining companies for pumping out massive amounts of groundwater as they bore through the aquifer.

Water use in pit mining has been largely unregulated to this point, but that's about to change.

The Oklahoma Water Resources board has been charged by the legislature with creating new rules for the monitoring and management of aquifer water displaced by mining. The process is ongoing, but the OWRB has sent

proposed rules to interested parties like Citizens for the Protection of the Arbuckle-Simpson Aquifer and mining companies.

The rules appear fairly strict. New mines will have to report how much aquifer water is being displaced down to the amount of water still dampening the rock when it's hauled off.

That will be difficult enough for the mining companies, but they'll also have to show their plan to conserve the pit water by pumping it into streams or building recharge ponds.

So, problem solved, right? Wrong. CPASA is getting its first look at the proposed rules and isn't enthusiastic.

One point of contention for the group is the fact that only companies that apply for mining permits after Aug. 1, 2011 have to manage pit water. Once the rules are approved, companies who applied for permits before the

deadline only have to monitor their water use. Mining companies rushed to apply for permits before that deadline. None have applied since, say officials with the State Department of Mines.

Kevin Blackwood, a CPASA member and hydrogeologist for the Arbuckle-Karst Conservancy, says it doesn't matter how tough the rules are if all of the companies currently mining over the aquifer are exempt from them.

"That's something I do have a problem with, because all the problems that exist currently are associated with the mines that we have right now," he says. "I do have a problem with that exemption for them."

But J.D. Strong, executive director of the state Water Resources Board, says the pit water management exemptions are conditional and revocable.  Tougher regulations will be triggered if mining companies fail to monitor water use, or use more than their allotted share of groundwater, which varies from mine to mine.

Aside from the exemptions, Blackwood says the proposed rules are forceful, if a bit confusing.

"I've had a little bit of trouble understanding these, and I understand some of the attorneys have had a little bit of difficulty with it as well," he says. "But what I can understand, I'm a little bit optimistic with. I like what I see."

The OWRB will publicize the proposed rules in early December, and won't finalize the rules until the agency's January 2013 board meeting. Strong says there's still time for changes.