Fracking Didn't Contaminate Pa., Texas Water

By Kevin D. Williamson

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

The debate over fracking is a pretty low-quality one, driven by emotion, invented evidence, gross distortion of the facts, and general intellectual dishonesty. This is a shame for many reasons: Inflicting unnecessary stupidity on the world is a sin, for one thing. For another, it is important that we actually understand the fairly thorny environmental problems presented not only by fracking but by other methods of drilling for natural gas.

A paper published Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences presents very strong evidence that the contamination of drinking water in wells in Texas and Pennsylvania was not the result of fracking. But the wells were nonetheless contaminated. The culprit was not the hydraulic-fracturing process, but simple bad well design, resulting in leaks. This is an example of something well-known both to energy industry experts and regulators: Conventional gas drilling presents as many environmental challenges as, and arguably more than, fracking does.

The biggest environmental problem associated with fracking has little to do with the drilling process itself and much more to do with the comparatively unsexy issue of wastewater disposal. (If you’re jazzed about the possibility of a very long discussion of wastewater-disposal issues, don’t say I never did anything for you.) For an unconscionably long time, the industry’s practice was to hand over its wastewater to municipal water authorities, most of which were ill-equipped to deal with it; they simply diluted it until such a point as the letter of the law was satisfied and then dumped it. The anti-fracking crusaders worry a great deal about what goes down the well — the precise composition of fracking fluids — but the bigger problem is what comes up the well. Drilling that deep underground means pulling up all sorts of stuff, ranging from arsenic and some fairly nasty carcinogens to naturally occurring radioactive material. Not stuff you want to dump in the river.

The gas producers have begun addressing that by treating and reusing wastewater, and an entire fascinating mini-industry has grown up around that practice. The gas industry’s best-practices leaders are in fact extraordinarily proactive in mitigating environmental damage, and trade groups such as the Marcellus Shale Coalition have done remarkable work encouraging their members to go above and beyond what the law requires. But not every company is a leader, and best practices are not universal practices.

The distribution of natural gas and water underground is a complicated issue. In the Pennsylvania and Texas wells studied for the PNAS paper, the problem was well damage and well design. In the famous flaming-sink scene from Gasland, the problem was that the water well had been sunk into a naturally occurring pocket of methane; gas production, to say nothing of fracking, had nothing to do with that striking image, which is very effective propaganda but bad science. There is a great deal of naturally occurring methane in bodies of water around the world and goes back to ancient history — to pre-history, in fact. Note the number of places named “Burning Springs” or some variant around the world.

Every discussion of the environmental issues related to energy should begin with an appreciation for this indisputable fact: There is no energy source that does not present serious environmental challenges. Oil and gas have their problems, coal has what seem to me to be very serious problems, nuclear energy (which I strongly favor) presents some pretty hairy disposal challenges and safety concerns. Even the fuzzy, cuddly energy sources have problems: It takes a tremendous amount of poison to make those “green” solar panels. The general hideousness of wind farms requires no explanation.

The question isn’t “clean” energy. There is no clean energy. The question is how we go about prudently and intelligently managing the risks and problems associated with energy production. Posting pictures of flaming sinks on your Facebook page is not the way to go about understanding those problems. This is a discussion best left to the grown-ups, but the children have the floor most of the time.