Fracking - where is it headed ?

[Griff]

Cuomo is the slimiest character to come out of New York politics in a while, always look for another rea$on for any policy.

[xoxoxoBruce]

As Mr Wonderful on Shark Tank says, "It's about the money, it's always about the money, all the time."

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by Griff

New York takes the wrong approach to ‘fracking’

...States such as Colorado have developed rules with sensitivity both to industry and to environmental concerns.
The Obama administration is developing its own, national fracking rules, too.
That’s the model to follow — not New York’s.

Hmmmm..... Did the Washington Post forget to mention ...

from here
Colorado: yellow dots = violatlons

green lines = water sheds
lavender = shale plays
tan areas = shale basins
orange dots = horizontal wells

Pennsylvania: yellow dots = violations

green lines = water sheds
lavender area = EIA shale play
purple dots = permits

Maybe Kentucky doesn't have problems ... yet, but government prevention of coal ash problems hasn't set a good example.

[Undertoad]

I tried to figure out what a "violation" is LL, do you have any insight on that?

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I tried to figure out what a "violation" is LL, do you have any insight on that?

Insight ???.

Since some maps on that link are showing "permits issued", I have to assume a violation is in terms of how each State defines those permits. Some maps show "contamination sites" which may be more self-evident.

There is a diversity of information among these maps, so I would not attempt to compare the numbers of violation in one state with the numbers in another state.

[glatt]

A few years ago when we were looking for a nursing home for my FIL, we looked at the state records for each. Every single place had tons of violations. One of them had a violation for letting a dementia patient wander out and get lost on the streets for a day, but most of them had violations like not having a DNR form in a holder on the back of a patient's room door.

You want there the be no violations, but there are violations and then there are violations.

I imagine it's similar here.

You don't want contaminated aquifers. That would be a big deal. But if a delivery truck has a shipment invoice with the wrong date on top, maybe that's not such a big deal.

[Lamplighter]

Glatt, I'm not sure your examples are analogous, but I agree that there are levels of "violations",
particularly when the comparison is between management of a single business operation
and an industry made up of many different "operators".

But maybe I would say that preventing a violation is much more important
than trying to or having to remedy a violation that has already happened.
There may be no remediation of a contaminated aquifer, especially one used for drinking water.
For example, the aquifer feeding into the Columbia River from the Hanford Reservation
(atomic bomb era) is almost certainly beyond remedy.

P.S. Not having a DNR in the patient's file may well lead to a very nasty situation...
that may not have a good solution.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

P.S. Not having a DNR in the patient's file may well lead to a very nasty situation...

True, I forgot to add that the DNR was instead at the nurse's station in the hall. But I agree it's still a violation and could, under certain circumstances, be a problem.

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Glatt, I'm not sure your examples are analogous

My analogies are not perfect, and my made-up example of a truck invoice may not be how minor some of the infractions are. I don't trust the oil industry at all, but that doesn't mean I completely trust that map either. I'm sure it's mapping something, but I don't know what.

[Lamplighter]

Operators (businesses/corporations/etc) seem to disappear
when significant problems arise. The federal government
has the EPA and the SuperFund to fall back on in severe cases,
but even there the number of such sites is small.

Maybe California and New York have the resources, but I doubt
many other states have such excess state taxes just lying about.

So when it comes to managing risks to public health, paying
heed to the "broken window" model of enforcement may be
the only/most effective path available to State governments.

[Undertoad]

violations like not having a DNR form in a holder on the back of a patient's room door

Not having a DNR in the patient's file may well lead to a very nasty situation

If you can't win an argument, just change it to something winnable.

If you post maps and don't know what they say, just talk about all the worst things that can happen. Holy shit, look at all the yellow dots! Every watershed in the entire state is in danger!

Not just "Inspected industry found violations!"

That's sort of what you hope would happen, that 1% of inspections would find something, that would be corrected, and the result is a safe, inspected industry. If that were what the maps showed, then mission accomplished. WaPo correct.

I read the local restaurant inspection reports, and 100% of them find something. Are we all in danger of being horribly poisoned?

~

So I went and looked into what the maps actually say.

Very good news: In Pennsylvania the state puts all the inspections on file online so you can search for them and figure out what they say.

The worst one I found, an operator accidentally ignited fumes in a holding tank by checking it with a cell phone instead of an ignition-free flashlight, which resulted in the loss of about half a backyard pool's worth of backflow water. (This resulted in 7 different violations and a fine.)

In the least worst, an operator plugged a well and sold it but failed to mark it with an embossed metal tag within 90 days. (This is the, "form was at the nurses' station instead of on the door" kind of violation.)

Many violations are the result of spillage of diesel fuel or brine on the well pad itself. Sometimes there was equipment failure. Sometimes someone put a hole in a few 55 gallon drums by accident.

So now we know what the maps mean. Inspected industry found violations. Awesome, it's good news. If they found nothing I would assume the inspection system is badly broken. It would mean our asses are swimming in benzene, if they found nothing. They found small incidents that could not threaten aquifers and it resulted in thorough reports and non-trivial fines. That's what I would hope to find out.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

So now we know what the maps mean. Inspected industry found violations.

Last I read, the state only has six inspectors. These are clearly overrun by inspecting so many sites - having to report so much small stuff. We know there should be at least 1% who are grossly violating the laws with permanent damage to the aquifier. Where are they? Hard to find with so many sites to inspect by only six inspectors. More reasons for Corbett's campaign fund raisers to get so much money from fracking companies. Money that did him no good.

BTW, today's gasoline price inceases another 10 cents - another Corbett's tax increase because he gave fracking gas away for free.

[Undertoad]

Last I read the state only has six inspectors

Yes, but you have to realize, all the facts you have read and remembered are from 1994 and earlier.

Today there are 80 inspectors.

We know there should be at least 1%

Made-up facts. It should be embarrassing.

[classicman]

BAM!
Bwahahahahaaaaaa

[xoxoxoBruce]

Fracking Chemicals Detected in Pennsylvania Drinking Water

An analysis of drinking water sampled from three homes in Bradford County, Pa., revealed traces of a compound commonly found in Marcellus Shale drilling fluids, according to a study published on Monday.

The paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, addresses a longstanding question about potential risks to underground drinking water from the drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The authors suggested a chain of events by which the drilling chemical ended up in a homeowner’s water supply.

“This is the first case published with a complete story showing organic compounds attributed to shale gas development found in a homeowner’s well,” said Susan Brantley, one of the study’s authors and a geoscientist from Pennsylvania State University.

NYT

[xoxoxoBruce]

Oil and natural gas fracking, on average, uses more than 28 times the water it did 15 years ago, gulping up to 9.6 million gallons of water per well and putting farming and drinking sources at risk in arid states, especially during drought. Those are the results of a U.S. Geological Survey study published by the American Geophysical Union, the first national-scale analysis and map of water use from hydraulic fracturing operations.
~snip~
The amount of water used for fracking in each well varies widely by region. In southern Illinois, an operation can use as little as 2,600 gallons of water each time fracking triggers the flow of oil or gas into a well. In West Texas’ Permian Basin surrounding Midland and Odessa, fracking uses between 264,000 and 2.6 million gallons of water each time. In Pennsylvania, Ohio, south and eastern Texas, Arkansas, northern Colorado and Montana, fracking can use more than 9 million gallons of water.

Scientific American