Back on Feb 1 I wrote a post about fracking, so that I could better understand this process by which natural gas is extracted from the earth. Little did I know that hydrofracking would soon become a hot topic for national debate, due in part to a series of articles in the NY Times titled Drilling Down. Check it out for all kinds of articles and interactive information on how the process works, and about the potentially harmful effects of the hydrofracking process. It’s an extensive amount of information.
Especially interesting for me, as a native of Pennsylvania, was the map within this series that shows the wastewater well contamination levels that were occurring at hydrofracking locations. The wastewater from the hydrofracking process is taken to sewage plants that might not be properly equipped to deal with such high toxicity.
So even if the sewage treatment plants are updated to deal with this toxic wastewater, from an infrastructural standpoint, roads are compromised as heavy trucks must transport the water in and out. Plus, there could be contamination of aquifers underground, should the cement tubes that are built to extract the natural gas rupture. The NY Times interactive features show this in depth.
But again, from a selfish standpoint, I have been trying to understand how the eagerness of the natural gas companies to drill in PA could affect my grandmother’s old farm. It made me thinks of a few questions…
1. How does a company gain the ability to extract natural gas via hydrofracking?
– Apparently a private land owner can lease the rights to the minerals in the ground beneath the land they have purchased, if they own the ‘mineral rights’ to their property.
2. If I live/have land next to the location of a well, am I protected?
– Well here the laws are variable. Apparently, in some states, a natural gas company could extract gas from a neighbor without paying them to lease the land, or without sharing the royalties for the sale of the gas removed.
3. When the water and chemicals are pushed into the earth to release the natural gas, and then the contaminated water is later extracted, what would stop the natural gas companies from just dumping the contaminated water wherever they please?
– Unfortunately I couldn’t find any specific regulations or laws around the disposal of the contaminated water. Of course, there’s the sewage treatment option (despite the fact that processing water with toxic and potentially radioactive materials – the byproducts of the fracking process – must be different than processing human waste, but that’s besides the point)… and then in some cases, the water is stored in open pits, which are subject to the elements (could overflow in a bad rain storm no doubt).
I still haven’t watched ‘Gasland’ and can expect that some of the questions here might be answered there. But this at least, thanks to the NY Times, I have more grounding and a better understanding of the dangers than before.
