Thousands of Known Spills at Fracking Sites, But How Many Unknown?

by Duane Nichols on February 23, 2017

Plenty of spills also in West Virginia

Fracking Caused 6,648 Spills in Four States Alone, Duke Study Finds

From an Article by Lorraine Chow, EcoWatch.com, February 21, 2017

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has long been tied to environmental risks such as spills. The frequency of spills, however, has long been murky since states do not release standardized data. Estimates from the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA) vary wildly.

“The number of spills nationally could range from approximately 100 to 3,700 spills annually, assuming 25,000 to 30,000 new wells are fractured per year,” the agency said in a June 2015 report. Also, the EPA reported only 457 spills related to fracking in 11 states between 2006 and 2012.

But now, a new study suggests that fracking-related spills occur at a much higher rate.  The analysis, published February 21st in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, revealed 6,648 spills in four states alone—Colorado, New Mexico, North Dakota and Pennsylvania—in 10 years.

The researchers determined that up to 16 percent of fracked oil and gas wells spill hydrocarbons, chemically laden water, fracking fluids and other substances.

For the study, the researchers examined state-level spill data to characterize spills associated with unconventional oil and gas development at 31,481 fracked wells in the four states between 2005 and 2014.

“On average, that’s equivalent to 55 spills per 1,000 wells in any given year,” lead author Lauren Patterson, a policy associate at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, told ResearchGate.

North Dakota reported the highest spill rate, with 4,453 incidents. Pennsylvania reported 1,293, Colorado reported 476 and New Mexico reported 426. The researchers created an interactive map of spill sites in the four states.

Although North Dakota is rich in oil, the state’s higher spill rate can be explained by varying state reporting requirements. North Dakota is required to report any spill larger than 42 gallons whereas requirement in Colorado and New Mexico is 210 gallons.

Patterson points out that the different reporting requirements are a problem.

“Our study concludes that making state spill data more uniform and accessible could provide stakeholders with important information on where to target efforts for locating and preventing future spills,” she told ResearchGate. “States would benefit from setting reporting requirements that generate actionable information—that is, information regulators and industry can use to identify and respond to risk ‘hot spots.’ It would also be beneficial to standardize how spills are reported. This would improve accuracy and make the data usable to understand spill risks.”

The reason why the researchers’ numbers vastly exceeded the 457 spills estimated by the EPA is because the agency only accounted for spills during the hydraulic fracturing stage itself, rather than the entire process of unconventional oil and gas production.

“Understanding spills at all stages of well development is important because preparing for hydraulic fracturing requires the transport of more materials to and from well sites and storage of these materials on site,” Patterson explained. “Investigating all stages helps to shed further light on the spills that can occur at all types of wells—not just unconventional ones.”

For instance, the researchers found that 50 percent of spills were related to storage and moving fluids via pipelines. “The causes are quite varied,” Patterson told BBC. “Equipment failure was the greatest factor, the loading and unloading of trucks with material had a lot more human error than other places.”

For the four states studied, most spills occurred in the the first three years of a well’s life, when drilling and hydraulic fracturing occurred and production volumes were highest.

Additionally, a significant portion of spills (26 percent in Colorado, 53 percent in North Dakota) occurred at wells with more than one spill, suggesting that wells where spills have already occurred merit closer attention.

“Analyses like this one are so important, to define and mitigate risk to water supplies and human health,” said Kate Konschnik, director of the Harvard Law School’s Environmental Policy Initiative in a statement. “Writing state reporting rules with these factors in mind is critical, to ensure that the right data are available—and in an accessible format—for industry, states and the research community.”

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

Tom Bond April 12, 2017 at 11:47 am

Editor, Fredricksburg.com    April 12, 2017
 
Mr. Miles Morin’s statement about ground water in the article “National report: Rappahannock River endangered by fracking threat” is typical of a corporate employee designated to answer a pubic inquiry.  Eyes wide shut, leading with his nose, follow the profit line, even into a brick wall.
 
Water contamination was observed from the beginning of fracking.  Originally blown off as “anecdotal,” the poor landowner was considered an idiot, no matter how often it happened. 
 
Think about it: the water changed simultaneously with the drilling.  How much else has been going on down there deep in the earth in the last century?  Not much!
 
Years ago, Dr, Anthony R. Ingraffea, one of the world’s leading petroleum engineers, using records of the Pennsylvania DEP, showed 16% of the fracked wells in Pennsylvania contaminated the aquifer immediately, and he expects more will be in time!  The contamination is frequently due to sloppy work.
 
If you Google “contamination of aquifers by fracking” you get pages of references. Articles in Scientific American, Physics.org., EPA, USA Today and more.  Energy in Depth talks about a study by Duke University scientists, Resilience carried one by Stanford scientists, and Marketplace has a nice graph of “Hydraulic Fracturing into Underground Sources of Drinking Water, Pavillion, WY.”
 
We are supposed to be living in the “post-truth era.”  Maybe Lenin was right, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”  That seems to be the position of the oil and gas industry!

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SKY TRUTH August 25, 2018 at 11:05 am

Skytruth Alert: NRC Report: Fr – Fracking Liquid near Middlebourne, WV 2018-08-18

Report Details: NRC Report ID: 1221983

Incident Time: 2018-08-18 10:00:00

Nearest City: Middlebourne, Tyler County, WV

Material: FR – FRACKING LIQUID

Medium Affected: WATER

Suspected Responsible Party: US WELL

Lat/Long: 39.494028, -80.897319 (Approximated from CITY_STATE)

Report Description:
CALLER IS REPORTING THAT A TRUCK LOST LOAD OF TOTES AND SPILLED SOME KIND OF FRACKING LIQUID ON SOIL, GRASS AND DITCH. THE CALLER IS CONCERNED ABOUT WELL WATER CONTAMINATION.

Source: http://alerts.skytruth.org/report/db628bce-f742-3e38-83bb-a1168cbadb28#c=stae

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PA — DEP September 2, 2018 at 1:06 am

PA-DEP annual report details increased inspections, protections | Business | observer-reporter.com

From the Washington PA Observer Reporter, August 31, 2018

The Pennsylvania state Department of Environmental Protection released its annual oil and gas report Friday afternoon. Among the highlights for 2017:

>> “About 5.36 trillion cubic feet of natural gas was produced from unconventional gas wells … the largest volume … on record that has been produced in Pennsylvania in a single year.”

>> “Amid a record number of inspections, unconventional operators maintained a strong 95 percent compliance rate.”

>> “… there is no evidence that hydraulic fracturing has resulted in a direct impact to a water supply in Pennsylvania.”

PA-DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell said in a prepared statement: “As the production of natural gas in Pennsylvania reached record volume last year, DEP continued to work hard on program developments that improved customer service to industry and strengthened environmental protection.”

Total inspections, and inspections of unconventional Marcellus Shale wells, hit record levels, the report said, adding more than 36,000 compliance inspections were conducted during the year. PA-DEP reported it has averaged 35,483 total inspections per year during the three years of the Wolf administration, up from an average of 26,230 in the previous four years under Gov. Tom Corbett.

The report said PA-DEP issued 2,028 unconventional well permits last year, 707 more than in 2016, and operators produced 5.36 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, about a quarter-trillion increase over 2016.

Source: https://observer-reporter.com/business/dep-report-details-increased-inspections-protections/article_7af2e3bc-ad4b-11e8-ae9b-5bacdd09aee3.html

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