Shoving Humpty Dumpty

Recently, a bill was introduced in the New York State Assembly, A04614, that would require oil and gas drillers that “affect a water supply by pollution or diminution” to restore or replace it. The bill’s heart is obviously in the right place, to the extent that it is trying to protect the public from damage that may be done by drilling. The problem is that what it’s trying to mandate by law may not be feasible.

In this area, most of us get our water directly from the groundwater in the aquifer. To restore our water supply after it’s been contaminated means restoring the aquifer. And if the experts we spoke to are to be believed, that might prove easier said than done.

In response to our query, John Williams of the New York Water Resource Center of the United States Geological Survey wrote, “Attempts to restore fractured bedrock aquifers [the type in the Marcellus Shale region] once they have been contaminated with petroleum, volatile organic compounds or other organics typically are not successful.” Natural gas deposits, of course, are a type of petroleum, and some of the compounds contained in fracking fluids are organic, though he described them as “in low concentrations.” But Williams pointed out another possible source of contamination: “The flowback water following hydraulic fracturing, which includes saline water from the shale formation, may potentially have naturally occurring inorganic, organic and radioactive contaminants at higher levels.”

To be sure, the gas is buried deep below the level of aquifers, and so long as no leakage occurs through the drill casing, it could be argued that it won’t get into the drinking supply. But Tom Myers, an independent hydrogeology consultant, noted that the fluids traveling through the drill pipe are under enormous pressure, and it might not take much in the way of a flaw to create a leak under that kind of pressure. Another possibility, however, noted by Myers, is that natural gas can migrate upward into the aquifer through naturally occurring fractures, and the disturbance and underground pressure created by drilling can exacerbate such fractures and trigger or accelerate that process—particularly hydro-fracking, an especially violent procedure.

The possibility of contamination by gas migrating through underground fractures is illustrated by the case of Tioga County, PA, the subject of a USGS study published in 2007. There, it was determined that gas that had been found in a group of water wells over a 50-square-mile study area came primarily from three natural gas fields—and there hadn’t even been any fracking in that case. The recent incident in Dimock, PA, where drinking wells have been contaminated with methane—one to the degree that it exploded—may reflect a similar migration.

So the risks of contamination are certainly real. What about remediation? Myers, who has provided expert testimony in cases regarding aquifer contamination, noted a case in which the contamination in an aquifer was successfully reduced to 10 percent of its original level—but only after the entire original volume of water in the aquifer had been replaced 700 times. The amount of pumping involved in such an exercise could literally take years, and would involve having one or more additional “pump-back” wells drilled on the property, with pumps operating constantly, some kind of container to pump the contaminated water into and presumably trucks carrying it away when the container became full.

If a contamination event is short lived and the response rapid, according to Williams, there is a better chance of at least some rehabilitation of the aquifer. But here again, the proposed legislation falls short of protecting the public. Even if it could eventually be proved that it were drilling and not some other source that caused the contamination, it could take a long time for a consumer complaint to make its way through the legal system—as the recent settlement between the Department of Environmental Conservation and the Millennium Pipeline Company showed with regard to the much milder disturbances involved in laying pipe.

Aquifers are a priceless resource that will be valuable as long as the human race survives, unlike natural gas and other fossil fuels, which will be obsolete in decades. And once we have damaged them, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men may not be able to put them back together again. Passing a law isn’t going to change that. But it is something that individual landowners who care about our children might want to consider before they sign a lease that allows gas drilling on their land.

Also in this issue:

• Global heating the trump card

Dr. Punnybone

"Hey, I am track!"