Dear Shale Protestor,

A good friend of mine, a smart guy who has always lived on the East Coast, vehemently opposes hydraulic fracturing.  He summarizes his concern like this – “If the water is laced with chemicals when it’s injected into the ground and it comes back polluted, then what?  The short term benefits of shale development are not worth the possibility of polluting drinking water.”

I say, where has he been? 

In the United States, oil and gas companies produce more water than oil and gas.  For every barrel of oil they recover, they must produce 10 barrels of water.  Oil and gas is a byproduct of water production.  Not the other way around.  In other words, when oil and gas is produced, it brings a lot of water with it.  In the United States, oil and gas producers process approximately 2 billion gallons of water every day. That is the roughly double the amount of water New York City treats every day. 

Produced water quality varies widely.  Some is so clean that it can be drunk right from the well.  Think I’m kidding?  Water produced from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana is that clean. 

But that’s not the point.  Most produced water is not clean.  In fact it is seriously nasty stuff. Nobody would drink it.  It may contain any number of naturally occuring chemicals in any combination and concentration, including: salt (produced water is often referred to as brine), a variety of carbonate and sulfate scales, metals (zinc, lead, iron, manganese and barium are common), NORMs - naturally occurring radioactive material  like radium-226 and radium-228, and finely dispersed hydrocarbons. 

Produced water discharge is regulated by state because water usage issues vary by state.  For example, arid states in the West view produced water as beneficial, while temperate states in the East view produced water as waste.  In general, though, if produced water cannot be treated to pass a toxicity test -- requirements vary by state, but one test several states use is the survival rate of fish living in treated, produced water for up to 96 hours -- then it has to be injected underground. 

When produced water is injected underground, which most of it is, it never mixes with surface water. It is either injected back into the reservoir it came from, which serves to maintain pressure and increase oil recovery, or it is injected into disposal wells.  In either case, it is not discharged to surface and mixed with drinking water.

So here is my point.  In the United States, the oil and gas industry is really a produced water industry.  The industry is highly experienced and skilled at handling billions of gallons of produced water every day without polluting drinking water. Produced water is naturally nastier than fracturing fluid -- which although we may not know the precise formulation, yet, is basically water, sand and pool chemicals -- so why is there so much fear about oil and gas development polluting drinking water?

Till next time, 

Energy Mom
New York, New York