Fracking – good for energy, bad for groundwater
Fracking (hydrofracking) is a largely talked about issue these days. Getting the stores of natural gases out of the bedrock is helpful and highly useful for the energy needs of the planet. With petroleum reserves running low, natural gas extracted through fracking has become a very large portion of the total energy for the United States, as well as other parts of the world. This is good for keeping energy costs from skyrocketing, but the environmental impacts are just now beginning to be understood.
Despite gas company claims that they recover all of the fluid they use during the fracking process, when fracking fluid is pumped down into the wells where natural gas is stored deep in the bedrock, some of the fluid (10-40%) makes its way back up the well boring and leaches out into the surrounding soil. Through the soil, which is usually unsaturated (lacking moisture content) in the areas where natural oil deposits are located, the fracking fluid can flow outward and is currently seen making its way into aquifers. This doesn’t sound so bad, until you learn about the components of the fracking fluid. Natural gas companies will tell you that the majority of the fluid is just water, which is in large part true. But since the natural gas is held up in pores in rock hundreds of thousands of years old, and deep within the earth, water alone is not usually enough to dispense the gas from it’s stored locations. To address this purpose, gas companies mix a variety of compounds (surfactants) meant to make the water slipperier, which allows the water to better displace the natural gas in the porous rock. These surfactants are being found in aquifers near fracking sites, as well as a variety of other compounds that had previously been locked up in the bedrock with the natural gas.
The surfactant components as well as the particles that have been mobilized from deep within the rock bring up a whole new problem for environmental impact monitoring. Each gas company uses a different mixture of surfactants, and the recipe for them is considered a trade secret, so they do not have to disclose them to the EPA or local agencies whose duty it is to monitor the surrounding areas for contamination. Without knowing exactly what compounds are in the fracking fluids, it is impossible to monitor the movement of those compounds to ensure they do not end up in public water sources. During water treatment for mass consumption, a series of methods are performed to remove pathogens and toxins that might be present in the water to ensure public safety for water consumption. But without knowing what compounds are being introduced to the aquifer where the water is being drawn from, it is impossible to accurately develop methods of removing them all from public water. For the same reason, it is increasingly difficult to ensure proper removal of all compounds that may be brought up from the bedrock from hundreds of thousands of years ago.
On top of other issues that fracking introduces to many areas of the country / globe, these chemical contaminants are of growing concern. Without regulations on what chemicals are used, or the practice of collecting the fluid after use, it is impossible to initiate proper cleanup methods to ensure the safety of the public water supply. Natural gas currently provides between 20-30% of the energy in the US, but at what cost? What toxins is the practice of fracking introducing to the public domain? And what energy source will replace natural gas when the stores run out?
