I’m sure you know what the word “fracking” means unless
you’ve been sleeping like Rip Van Winkle for the past twenty or so years. It is a fairly recent invented word that
refers to the process of hydraulic fracturing of deep layers of rock to extract
the oil and gas from those subterranean deposits.
I could try to explain what the process entails, but I
encourage you instead to take a few minutes to watch a very good video presentation of fracking
from Voyager Corporation, a company that performs this process.
Hardly a day goes by when something doesn’t come to my Inbox
about the perils of fracking. There is
a lot of secrecy about the chemicals used along with the 95% water-and-sand base that is pumped down into the
rock to form the cracks and allow gas and oil to flow back up the pipes.
Many unsubstantiated and unproved reports have been made
about contamination of the aquifers and drinking water supplies caused by
fracking. I even watched an episode of
the television program CSI, where a rancher’s well water was supposedly
set afire at the spigot due to gas contamination. Fracking was said to be the culprit. Several states have banned
the process—New York is one—due to the perceived hazard.
I’m no expert on fracking and I won’t pretend to know for a
certainty how dangerous the process is, so this column is more a forum for
airing ideas about it. So here goes…
I searched for the answer to the questions, “How deep is the
average water well?” and, “What is the average depth of an aquifer?” I found that most wells are 100-200 feet
deep, while aquifers (permeable water-bearing sandstone) can be 500 to 1,000
feet below ground.
Since ground water contamination is the main source of
opposition to fracking, I wanted to learn how deep hydraulic fracturing takes
place. I learned that most of it is
done at the 5,000 to 10,000 foot level, a mile or more beneath the aquifers and
up to two miles below the average drinking water wells. In my opinion the case for contamination is
pretty weak. But then, I’m not an
expert, so what do I know?
So next I wanted to learn how deep the vast network of gas,
oil and ethanol pipelines are buried.
Natural gas and ethanol must be transported via pipelines so there has
to be a huge infrastructure of these lines throughout the country. Petroleum can be shipped or transported by
tanker truck or rail tank cars, but it is much more economical to pipe it.
I discovered that those huge pipes are mostly within 20 feet
of the surface, and most are only buried 3-5 feet below ground. But wait, that is between the level where
drinking water is found and the surface where people live and use it. Wouldn’t
that provide much more risk than fracking?
After all, those pipes have been in place for decades, and they must be
subject to corrosion and leaks. There
is no concrete barrier around them like there is in the fracking process
either.
The latest controversy is over the Keystone XL pipeline that
is supposed to bring oil from Canada to the refineries in the United
States. Even this one is being held up
and has to be rerouted to avoid the Ogallala aquifer in Nebraska. But then the Ogallala aquifer is huge, and
it extends above and below Nebraska. And it has literally thousands of miles of
pipeline running through it already. Check out this video
from a Canadian television network about the proposed pipeline.
Before I leave this sensitive topic, I have to point out
that the long awaited and oh, so controversial drilling in the ANWR region of
Alaska would be 100 percent fracking, since that’s the only way to extract that
gas and oil. Not only is the region a
tundra wasteland—those beautiful mountains and lakes that you see in the
anti-drill propaganda are not even close to the drill sites—but there are no
people living up there, and even the caribou don’t go that far north. If they
ever do stray up there, the risk of contamination of the water supply is vastly
overstated. The fact is that all the
water up there is frozen anyway.
I regret that I’ve probably disillusioned or angered some of
you environmentalists out there, but I cannot support a ban on the extraction
of our own natural gas and petroleum to the great advantage of people who seem
to be our perpetual enemies. If you care to get in on the forum with your own
ideas, feel free to log in and post away.
