Simon Lomax writes at Energy Indepth:
Local officials in Erie, Colo., are pushing back hard against a national environmental group for misrepresenting the outcome of a failed “ban fracking” campaign in their town. The officials say the Massachusetts-based group has “ignored or misstated” the facts, including a number of scientific analyses posted on the town’s website, and they are demanding to know: “Why did you ignore this information?”
The Union of Concern Scientists in Cambridge, Mass., profiled the Town of Erie in a “toolkit” for anti-energy activists called Science, Democracy and Fracking: A Guide for Community Residents and Policy Makers Facing Decisions over Hydraulic Fracturing. Regular readers of Energy In Depth may recall we have closely tracked events in Erie ourselves (some examples here, here, here, and here).
Among other things, the UCS publication falsely claims that a group of “ban fracking” activists were responsible for negotiating agreements with oil and natural gas companies in 2012 that have been hailed as a “statewide model” and a “thoughtful step forward” in the debate over energy development in Colorado. In reality, the activist group Erie Rising fought those agreements tooth and nail with help from the national “ban fracking” group Food & Water Watch.
Washington, D.C.-based Food & Water Watch even declared Erie “ground zero” of the “national movement” to ban hydraulic fracturing, which is really a ban on domestic oil and gas development, because this technology is essential for developing more than 90 percent of oil and gas wells in Colorado and across the nation. Food & Water Watch opposes negotiated agreements with the energy industry and even tougher regulations. Instead, this group just wants to ban energy development across Colorado and nationwide for ideological reasons.
But in Erie, the “ban fracking” campaign fell flat when Erie town officials investigated the alarmist claims of the activists and found them to be false. Former Erie Mayor Joe Wilson later wrote in a Denver Post column that town officials “sorted fact from fiction, and helped our Board of Trustees drive a hard bargain with oil and gas operators to get the best possible environmental controls” while the activists “mindlessly opposed them.”
Erie Town Administrator A.J. Krieger corrected the record in a scathing July 10 letter to UCS. Krieger and his staff also shared the letter with local officials, environmental advocates, industry representatives, academics and other stakeholders to promote the idea that “factual information serve as the cornerstone of any public discussion of oil and gas activities – including fracking.” Here are some highlights from Krieger’s letter to the UCS Center for Science and Democracy:
“It came as no surprise to us that the Town of Erie was mentioned in your publication. … But what did surprise us is just how much inaccurate information you could squeeze into a mere 128 word article.
We are not sure if you ignored or misstated information readily available to the public. However, what is clear to us is this article does not even meet the most basic criteria including on your “Checklist for Determining Reliable Information” (see page 9 of your publication). …
We have taken the time to set the record straight for you and your readers because the Town of Erie values a balanced approach to oil and gas development – one that is protective of human health and the environment while taking into consideration private property rights. …
The Town of Erie has a great story to tell. We are at a loss for why you chose not to dedicate the time to share it accurately with your readers.”
The full text of the letter can be found here.
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The real issue is old abandoned wells where the casing has failed or the well wasn’t sealed off properly. Fracking fluid cannot penetrate “vertical fissures” as was mentioned above. If the vertical fissures were permeable the oil & gas would have leaked out millions of years ago and there would be no reason to frac.
save energy says:
July 25, 2014 at 12:43 am
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In your opinions, everyone is a liar.
Does that include you?
Greg says:
July 25, 2014 at 2:13 am
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Back in the 70’s and 80’s they experimented with injecting water into faults to try and trigger small earthquakes in order to prevent big ones from forming.
The experiments failed.
Greg Goodman says:
July 25, 2014 at 2:25 am
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Those who stand to make a stack of money, can also be sued for everything they are worth if they harm anyone, plus they have about a dozen state and federal agencies looking over their shoulders every step of the way.
Just because people are trying to make money is not evidence that they are inherently evil.
Greg Goodman says:
July 25, 2014 at 2:25 am
most opposition to fracking is a genuine fear of pollution of the ground water.
Not anymore. You need to get with the times, Greg. Initially, there were some legitimate concerns, but as the technology improved and concerns were addressed, two things happened: enviro whacko groups latched onto it as a money-maker, which is what they do. They will continue to fan the flames of fear, because it is good for their business which is basically fear-mongering for a buck. But then, the anti-human anti-energy climate alarmists saw an opportunity there as well, so they joined forces. Climate alarmists are against fracking because it is convenient for them to be. Attack fracking and you automatically attack energy. In essence, it allows them to hide behind a faux issue while they do their attacking.
Fractivists need to understand that :
1) Mineral rights are legally superior to surface rights – always have been, always will be
2) That a clean environment is good business – no oil & gas company wants to deliberately foul the environment
3) Millions of fracs have been performed over many decades with negliglible adverse effects. I would challenge them to find any industrial process with a record as clean as this.
…. but of course the assumption here is they are actually concerned.The reality of their actions, as seen in this post is all they really want to do is shut down any industrial actions, facts be damned.
From Alx on July 25, 2014 at 4:26 am:
And already the hedging begins, backing away from “just impossible” down to “extreme improbability”.
As a machinist, as one who has studied heat treatment of high-grade steel, I know strange things happen. Instead of deformation you can get fracturing, sharp-edged across a line in the crystal structure. Steel can change over time, age harden, become more prone to breakage. The rolling of steel introduces structure, “grain” like you were talking about layers of wood. There were customers who wanted washer-like pieces machined from plate rather than cut off a bar of the same material due to the different characteristics.
And also with methane gas there is a hydrogen component, with hydrogen embrittlement of high-grade steel being a long-known issue.
Also I haven’t heard studies of what happens to a well that’s hit by lightning, as in thousands of feet below where the steel is unlikely to be recovered for analysis. Physics says the electrical charge would be carried by the outermost conductor, as like charges repel. If the outermost steel/cement layer is cement that’s insulating, then the lightning might be carried very deep by the outermost steel layer, causing strange alignments of the crystal structures as it goes.
It’s long odds and failure might take a long time, many decades, long after a well is considered depleted. Personally I don’t expect it to be an issue. But by known mechanisms of failure, “just impossible” is just poking Murphy.
Richie D says:
July 24, 2014 at 5:28 pm
So what does this have to do with Climate Change (TM)? Or have I misunderstood the raison d’etre for this website?
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Yes you have misunderstood. Please read the small writing in the head banner.
“Commentary on puzzling things in life,…” And a puzzling thing to many of us is why UCS lies.
Morning of July 25 (MST):
Are we to take the lack of updates as UCS ignoring their errors?
If you really want to know what is in the frac fluid here is a link http://energyindepth.org/docs/frac-fluid.pdf .
I started fracing wells w/Marathon Oil in ’78 and continued through w/Mitchell Energy on the first of the Barnett Shale wells in the 80’s where it was a major geology/engineering/science project. The unknown quantity at the time was that shale was not to be put in contact w/water because of the swelling of the clays. We went from using nitrogen only to, dare I say it, Co2, to over 2 million pounds of sand in gelled water in a period of a couple years. That was back when the wells were all vertical as opposed to the horizontally drilled wells of today.
Granted there have been many impacts to shallow ground water due to past practices in the oil patch but not one case of groundwater impact can be tied directly to a frac job. Spills, bad practices, and down right intentional releases can and do affect shallow groundwater. Things are getting better and hopefully less groundwater will be impacted in the future. We have plenty of the past to remediate but none due to fracing.
BTW – fracing in not a drilling process, it is a completion process and disposal of produced water (including spent frac fluid) is a necessary function and is mostly done by injection into non-productive formations or converted production wells into a productive zone, much like is done in waterflooding.
Since natural gas (even though it’s a ‘fossil fuel’) is ‘cleaner’ than other carbon-based fuels, one way to reduce emmissions and appease the cry of those who believe that CO2 is evil incarnate, is to use more of it. To use more of it…you need to get it out of the ground…and the best way to do that…fracking.
Hence, an appropriate topic for a climate site.
agree with you, Jeff L. For the person who wrote: “Oil and gas are commodities, If you are a landowner, they are now removing from your property what is yours. I believe that there is a term for unlawful removal of property.”
You’re combining several legal concepts – two are the common law doctrines of “nuisance” and “trespass”, in which someone’s actions cause harm and/or devaluation to someone else’s property, and another is flat out theft, in the case that someone drills under land which they have no leasehold rights to and take the minerals underlying it without permission.
You should know that no driller goes ahead with a well without having all the minerals in his unit leased, because all states strictly regulate this and the financial penalties for getting caught doing this are immense. But if the mineral owner has leased his rights, or a predecessor in interest has done so, contract law says that he has no case, as long as the lease and all relevant environmental laws are followed.
But you’re probably concerned about the case where there is a surface owner who owns no mineral rights, and who gains no financial benefit from the drilling underneath his land. This is nothing new, this has been a constant conflict since the first days of the oil and gas industry. The problem is that most states recognize that the surface estate (what your surface owner has) is subservient to the mineral estate (what the subsurface owner has), and the surface owner is legally enjoined from taking action to block the subsurface owner from enjoying the benefit of the minerals he owns.
If the surface owner can *prove* physical, actual, damage, then he will be compensated, and this happens every day. Unfortunately for most who want to make a complaint, Courts do not recognize “psychological distress because I don’t like drilling” as a valid source of damages.
Union of Concerned Scientists , UNICORNs perhaps?
As for uplifting peoples lives with cheap energy and economic activity, well that just isn’t socialism chaps. How can any self respecting environut not hate frac’ing?
“In that area there are dozens of abandoned wells from the 1920′s that were never plugged and the frac job forces the chemicals back up these old wells to shallow aquifers. I am all for fracking, it is the future of our energy supply, but don’t claim that it has never damaged the environment. If the surface casing isn’t set properly or there are vertical fissures in the confining layer (or old wells that were not plugged nearby), any frac job has the potential to affect shallow aquifers.”
Not a petroleum engineer as my dad was, but worked my way through college on fracking crews in the 1970’s. This is the first time I’ve heard of the abandoned well problem. At least it sounds plausible, unlike most of the hysterical baloney since “Gaslands” came out. I imagine no one would want to waste an expensive frac job only to create a “blowout” through an abandoned well.
What safeguards are in place to ensure that doesn’t happen?
Can you imagine if Eisenhower were president now, there’d be some real ‘splainin to do.
bonanzapilot says:
July 25, 2014 at 8:21 am
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In all this talk of oil & gas wells “blowing out” into water aquifers we should be reminded that water wells are also drilled into oil & gas reservoirs (shallow ones). A few years back a geothermal well was being drilled in a back yard of a subdivision near Oakville, Ontario and hit a pocket of natural methane gas almost blowing up the neighborhood. The reaction by the drilling companies was quite negative as they are now faced with the same red tape as the oil & gas companies who explore for it and have to close off the wells properly after completion, document everything and provide all their data to the Ministry to be released to the public.
When I was a little kid over a half century ago I truly did not know there was a difference between the word “communist” and “liar”. It was only later that I learned that I was half wrong, not all liars are communists…
the best lie is a half-told truth. The UCS fairy tale is 99.44% false, and demonstrably so. They are so rapt (pun intended) in their own agenda that the facts have become completely irrelevant. It reminds me of the following:
“The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.” – Leonardo da Vinci
The question is, does anybody have any real, working alternatives? Environmentalists offer nothing except Utopian daydreams of free energy from imaginary sources (newest fad — research into sustainable energy from free-range unicorn farts).
Nothing is perfect and nothing is without risk, but real energy beats imaginary energy hands down every time — except with greens, or course.
” jeanparisot says:
July 24, 2014 at 5:37 pm
But it does seem to correlate with increased seismic activity.
I know it correlates with better seismic sensors. ”
Most of the comments I have read tying “fracking” to seismicity have involved areas along and around the New Madrid fault. Everyone sees the increase in seismicity as caused by fracking, but if you were reading some of the information dealing with the “New Horizon” blowout that was published at that time, one of those analyzing BP’s screw up was saying that the leakage from the pocket that BP had hit was going to seep along the New Madrid causing increased seismicity. I have never forgotten the statement, and it seems to me that his prediction is currently being verified, but being blamed on something else.
What we truly know about anything in this world is about the size of a cup of water sitting next to the Pacific Ocean, representing what we don’t know. So much of everything we “believe we know” is conjecture and guess, but our “experts” act as if the ratio was reversed. There is almost nothing that we can do that will hurt the environment – exercising good judgment and consideration. There is almost nothing that we can do that won’t hurt it if we don’t. What we need to do, more than anything else, is change the reason for doing what we do – we don’t have to accumulate great wealth, whatever to hell that is, to accomplish things. Now if some “scientist” could only develop a pill that would cure “greed,” now that would be the best thing that could ever happen.
“This is a subject that interests me very much, both as a Colorado resident whose state may make a lot of money from fracking, and as someone dedicated to the increase and enhancement of life.” Colorado doesn’t make a penny off of “fracking”, which is a minor part of drilling and completions. Colorado makes money off of oil and gas production.
I love the use of the word “chemicals” in order to scare the public. Think about this. You are injecting the frac fluid into the oil and gas formation. In crude oil, you may have 100,000 different “chemicals”. Put it this way, I’d rather drink a glass of frac fluid over a glass of crude oil or produced water. And the “chemicals” are similar to hair conditioner, with some citric acid (lemon juice) to control pH. The other thing, “chemicals” are expensive. Their use is minimized.
“In the old days, I believe, fracking was done with the brine water brought up in the wells plus CO2 under pressure. Nowadays, the stuff includes various lubricants, some of which you definitely don’t want in your drinking water.” Do you even know what you are talking about? Have you ever seen “brine water”? That is some nasty stuff. Oh, and its “natural”.
Jerry says:
July 24, 2014 at 9:09 pm
Hey wait a second, that’s a picture of “new” Erie. I’ve been riding my bike through that area since 1989 and a picture of old Erie would show gravel roads and $50,000 houses with many mobile homes. Perhaps the leadership of Erie figured out that energy prosperity equaled local prosperity and cashed in. I can’t blame them if it did indeed lead to their town going from one of the most undesirable places to live to a rather nice place well situated to both Boulder and Denver.
Jerry, Erie started to build satellite communities about 15 years ago. They wanted homes and business so their children would not have to leave. They were a rural lignite town with dirt roads. The satellite communities like mine allowed the town to pave its roads, put in sidewalks and get their first supermarket. Pretty good for 1999. While balancing business and housing is a challenge for small towns, the various town boards have tried to walk that path. They have a revitalized down town, a growing business park and development in their Weld County side. A hearty “Hurrah” to elected leaders who research what the facts are, in order to make good decisions for their communities!
Isn’t it terrible when parents want to provide places for their children to live, work and play that are both environmentally safe and prosperous? /sarc
I was a charter member of the UCS. I was a power systems engineer concerned with the sloppy work being done when building early nuclear power plants. This was long before the DEMOCgogues arrived with their ignorant chanting mobs.
I quit after seeing many of the real and genuine concerned engineers and scientists replaced by cynical PR flaks and fund raisers, who used the money raised to live high on the hog themselves, while not giving a damn about genuine issues. They were and are concerned only with the most fund raising prospects.
Like Patrick Moore at GreenPeace I quit, and used to say the only Engineers remaining worked the second shift as these sanitation engineers swabeds floors,cleaned toilets and bathrooms for the UCS Red Liars.
Watermelons, green outside and red inside, are a very apt description of these phonies and charlatans.