Source: Ernst vs EnCana 2013

Researchers call for effective groundwater monitoring in Canada

From an Article by Andrew Nikiforuk, The Tyee.ca, April 11, 2017

A new University of Guelph study proves what many western Canadian landowners have long documented — that methane gas leaking from energy industry wells can travel great distances in groundwater and pose safety risks, contaminate water and contribute to climate change.

The study, published in Nature Geoscience this month, also concluded that current monitoring for gas leakage, usually at ground level and adjacent to wells, is inadequate to detect contamination.

“Current surface and subsurface monitoring efforts of shale gas development are thus insufficient to meaningfully detect or assess methane impacts to atmosphere and groundwater,” the study found.

British Columbia’s floundering shale gas industry has drilled and fracked nearly 10,000 wells in northeastern B.C. over the last decade, causing more than 1,000 earthquakes in the region. Impacts on groundwater are not being systematically monitored.

The study took a novel approach, said Aaron Cahill, lead author and groundwater researcher at the University of British Columbia. “We asked if leaks occur from an energy well, what happens to the groundwater and where does the methane go, and nobody had looked at that before.”

Cahill and other scientists at Guelph’s Institute for Groundwater Research injected methane over a 72-day period into a shallow sand aquifer at Canadian Forces Base Borden in Ontario at a rate of about a cubic metre a day — a volume much less than actually recorded at many leaking oil and gas wells in Alberta and B.C.

Guelph researchers tracked the injected methane for more than eight months via monitoring wells as the explosive gas travelled through the ground, entered the atmosphere or dissolved into groundwater, causing subtle but important changes to water chemistry.

In an aquifer, bacteria can metabolize methane and generate undesirable byproducts such as hydrogen sulfide. Bacterial reactions can also bring about the release of trace elements, changing water quality and potentially rendering it undrinkable.

“We didn’t see a lot of methane reacting. It degraded at low rates. In other words, if a leak were to occur the methane wouldn’t go away too rapidly from the aquifer,” Cahill said.

Cahill also noted that the study covered only a short time period and used only small amounts of methane. “For larger leaks over longer times and greater areas, these findings would indicate that the groundwater would likely become unusable,” he said.

Cahill said the distance travelled by the methane in a relatively shallow sand-based aquifer and complex interactions showed the importance of monitoring groundwater around energy developments.

Alberta, for example, only classifies a leaking well as “serious” when it leaks 300 cubic metres of methane a day, but the research showed extensive impacts on groundwater with a leak of just one cubic metre per day.

Methane leakage from tens of thousands of shale gas, coalbed methane, inactive and abandoned wells pose a major and costly environmental problem throughout North America where the energy industry has drilled more than 4 million holes since the 1850s.

There are 1,500 inactive and leaking wells in Alberta’s cities (some are in malls and playgrounds) and more than 150,000 abandoned or inactive wells in rural Alberta.

Reports of groundwater contamination are common throughout oil and gas regions in North America. In Pennsylvania alone there have been hundreds of cases of groundwater contamination from energy wells.

Although industry argues that shale gas wells are too deep to affect groundwater, most methane leaks come not from the production source or bottom of the well but from shallower geological formations closer to the surface of the well. Gas flows up then enters groundwater or the atmosphere via corroded, old or faulty seals.

Because all energy wells puncture the earth and caprocks, they often serve as effective pathways for the migration of methane, and other gases such as cancer-causing radon over time.

Phil Rygg, director of communications for the BC Oil and Gas Commission, said there were “some important learnings from the study” but that it only looked at how methane moves through beach sand in Ontario. He added that “it did not examine how gas could move along a shale gas well and enter groundwater.”

However, the researchers noted in their paper that methane will migrate much farther and faster in fractured sedimentary rock, like that found in northern B.C. and Alberta, compared to a sand aquifer.

Rygg said that a similar groundwater study is now being done by UBC and supported by Geoscience BC with technical input from the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission. Its goal is “to understand methane behaviour in the subsurface in northeast B.C., and includes drone and remote sensing research.” “The commission will continue to support research in this area, and supports the general recommendation for enhanced monitoring,” he said.

Despite evidence of serious methane leakage into groundwater from energy wells, many regulators and energy companies have denied the scale of the problem, claimed the methane naturally migrated into the groundwater or was caused by bacteria.   But the study challenges those assumptions by showing how a methane leak actually behaves in an aquifer.

Moreover, the study found that methane leakage into groundwater can affect water over a large area and “is an equivalent, if not, more significant process relative to atmospheric emissions.”  Once methane migrates into a pump house or basement it can be explosive in confined spaces.

“There has been no science-based groundwater monitoring using modern methods at fracking sites,” said Beth Parker, director of the G360 Institute for Groundwater Research and a co-author of the paper.  “Our findings are evidence that prospects for insightful information obtained from such groundwater monitoring are good, which goes against the ‘conventional wisdom’ mostly based on speculation or intuition.”

In recent years the chronic problem of methane leakage has been aggravated by hydraulic fracking, which causes more wear and tear on well plumbing and seals with intense pressures, shaking and well-banging seismic activity.

John Cherry, one of Canada’s top hydrogeologists and one of the paper’s authors, said the new study should put to rest any arguments that there is no point monitoring groundwater for methane contamination from energy wells “because it will move like little snakes in channels and you’ll never find it.” “The study found that very small amounts of injected methane ended up having a large impact on the aquifer — the magnitude was huge, and the methane hung around for a long time.”

No Canadian regulator has set up proper groundwater monitoring near shale gas facilities as recommended by a 2014 Council of Canadian Academies report on fracking. “No regulator has yet done what we recommended,” confirmed Cherry. Alberta doesn’t have a protocol for investigating methane contamination of groundwater.

The Council of Canadian Academies report found that the fracking industry, the foundation of B.C.’s failing liquefied natural gas strategy, had marched ahead without credible baseline data, scientific knowledge and necessary monitoring and had put groundwater at risk.

Jessica Ernst, a landowner who is suing the Alberta government and Encana alleging negligence in the fracking of shallow coal seams more than a decade ago, welcomed the Guelph study as long overdue.   Ernst said she would include the study in filings to support her lawsuit alleging the government’s “negligent investigation and cover-up of Encana’s fracking practices when the company illegally fractured my community’s drinking water aquifers and put us in explosive risk in our homes.”

Ernst said that the water reservoir in her hamlet of Rosebud blew up in 2005 — an incident the local paper attributed to an “accumulation of gases” that seriously injured a county worker.

In a separate incident a year later, “Alberta rancher Bruce Jack and two industry gas-in-water testers were also seriously injured and hospitalized after industry’s leaking methane and ethane caused his water to explode,” said Ernst. A 2011 Alberta Innovates report on the leak that identified industry contamination was never released to the Alberta public.

The Guelph study adds some cold and hard science to the growing debate about methane migration from oil and gas wells.

Nearly a half a dozen studies done by scientists at Duke and Stanford universities have consistently found elevated levels of methane in water wells near shale fracking operations but couldn’t always identify the source or the mechanism for contamination.   Other studies have found chemistry changes in groundwater near energy wells.

A 2014 University of Texas study, for example, looked at 100 water wells in the heavily fracked Barnett Shale and found that approximately 30 per cent of the wells within 2.9 kilometres of gas drilling sites showed an increased amount of arsenic and other heavy metals.

An earlier 2013 University of Texas study suggested that elevated levels of strontium, barium, selenium and methanol in water wells near gas wells could be due to a variety of factors, including hydro-geochemical changes from lowering of the water table, or industrial accidents such as faulty gas well casings.

For decades, fracking technology patents filed by industry noted that “it is not uncommon during hydraulic fracturing for the fracture to grow out of the zone of productive interest and proceed into a zone of non-productive interest, including zones containing water.”

But industry has repeatedly dealt with abuses of groundwater by offering landowners money and demanding that they sign non-disclosure agreements. In the absence of any credible groundwater monitoring, governments such as that of British Columbia can also claim, “There has never been a confirmed case of groundwater contamination in B.C. as a result of hydraulic fracturing.”

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers still maintains that “more than 215,000 wells have been hydraulically fractured in B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan without a demonstrated impact on drinking water, according to regulators.”

B.C. Natural Gas Development Minister Rich Coleman denied that energy wells leak methane in 2014. In contrast, the BC Oil and Gas Commission does not deny this reality.

According to a report by three University of Waterloo engineers, more than 10 per cent of B.C.’s existing 20,000 active and abandoned wells leak. In addition, some of the province’s shale gas wells have become “super emitters” of methane.

In recent years one energy company spent $8 million in northern B.C. to repair a badly leaking shale gas well.

• >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >

See the technical article: Mobility and persistence of methane in groundwater in a controlled-release field experiment

Lineup of Marcellus Waste Trucks

“Landfill Drill Waste Unlikely to Get in Water”

From Shale Play, Wheeling Intelligencer, July 2, 2015

Charleston, WV (AP) – A study by state regulators says it’s unlikely that significant amounts of untreated natural gas drilling waste in landfills will impact groundwater or surface water.

In the event that the waste’s runoff did hit nearby water untreated, however, the material would likely exceed chemical limits for drinking water and be toxic to plants and invertebrate life, the study concludes.

In a report released Wednesday, the Department of Environmental Protection looked into the runoff from drill cuttings dumped into landfills. The report studied four of the six West Virginia landfills that accept drilling waste, and compared them to two others that don’t.

The report says most groundwater near the studied landfills isn’t used for public water supplies, but is likely used for some private water supplies.

Radioactive levels in landfills that accept the drilling waste sometimes exceeded state limits for radioactivity in waterways. Treatment facilities that took in the drilling material had radioactive discharges similar to ones that didn’t handle its treatment.

The study says a new landfill for the material could take five or more years to build and cost the oil and gas industry $80 million. At least two new landfills would be needed to ensure drill operators didn’t have to drive further to dump their material than they currently do, the report says.

The study outlined some risks of the material ending up in waterways untreated: heavy precipitation events, overflow of piping systems connecting landfills to treatment facilities, cracks in piping systems handling the fluids, treatment system failures and landfill liner failures.

“It cannot be determined if or when landfill leachate might impact groundwater in the long-term,” the report says. The report found that the drill cuttings were not suitable for road building, or capping of brownfield sites.

But it also says parts of the material could potentially be used in a mix to fill abandoned underground mines and keep them from collapsing, or to fill other unused structures, including underground storage tanks, sewers or abandoned basements.

Environmental officials collaborated on the report with the state Division of Highways, branches of Marshall University and Glenville State University, and Research Environmental & Industrial Consultants.

>>>>>>>>>>>>

Editorial RE:  WV-DEP — Facts flow down hill

From an Editorial, Morgantown Dominion Post, Sunday, July 5, 2015

Landfill leachate from natural gas drilling waste may poison your water, but words never seem to hurt regulators. However, after reading the summary of a 200-page study released this past week on drill cuttings dumped into landfills, we have some words for the Department of Environmental Protection (WV-DEP).

Rarely do we engage in name calling, but this report leads us to believe WV-DEP actually stands for the Department of Environmental Prevarication. No, not in the sense the DEP is lying to us in this study, but it appears to deviate from the truth.

That doesn’t shock us. The idea of avoiding telling the truth by not directly answering a question is not some foreign concept to agencies. But this study does deflate some of our growing confidence in the safe operation of shale-gas drilling.

Only a month ago, an exhaustive, five-year, more than $30 million report by the US Environmental Protection Agency determined shale-gas drilling had caused no widespread harm to drinking water. Then, just about a week ago, drilling got under way on a “science well” and two other (Marcellus gas wells) along the Monongahela River that are under a bevy of researchers’ microscopes, so to speak.

But now it appears after taking two steps forward, we’re about to take one back. To its credit, this report doesn’t give inferences or suppositions any credence. Rather, it hinges on probabilities and deductive reasoning. Yet, it fails to estimate these probabilities and the end-result of the reasoning holds out little comfort.

For instance, it asserts it’s unlikely these cuttings in landfills will affect groundwater or surface water. Also, most groundwater near the landfills it studied isn’t used for public water supplies. But then it reports if this runoff hit nearby water untreated, it would likely exceed chemical limits for drinking water and would be toxic to invertebrate life. That toxicity might not apply to humans, too, but it sounds risky, at best.

The report also noted groundwater near these landfills is likely used for private water supplies. The study also noted how the material could end up in waterways untreated: Heavy precipitation events. Downpours? Cracks in piping systems linking landfills to treatment facilities ranked high. Treatment system and landfill liner failures were also outlined.

Then in a brilliant stroke the report concludes, “It cannot be determined if or when landfill leachate might impact groundwater in the long-term.”

Through the years, we suspect, the WV-DEP has often ignored its own findings or warnings, probably at the behest of industry or politics. However, it’s apparent many of this report’s words spell out a world of potential harm.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

NOTE:  See the report here:  ”Final Report on the Examination of Drill Cuttings and Related Environmental, Economic, and Technical Aspects Associated with Solid Waste Facilities in West Virginia,”  W. V. Department of Environmental Protection, July 1, 2015.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

EARTH’S WATER COMPARISON: Ocean Water (large blue sphere), Groundwater (small blue sphere), Freshwater (nearly invisible blue dot).

Source: Howard Perlman, United States Geological Survey.  Data source: Igor Shiklomanov “Worlds Freshwater Resources” in Peter H. Gleick (editor), 1993, Water in Crisis: A Guide to the World’s Fresh Water Resources (Oxford University Press, New York).

Note: The arrow is missing which locates the tiny freshwater dot below the others. Clearly, legislation is needed to provide a legal framework for the protection of our limited water resources here on earth.  As more and more chemicals are released into the environment, less of our existing water resources will be useful to us.  Life support is our number one need, as drinking water, for growing our food, for food preparation, and for the continued preparation of the products that support our life functions.

Pratts newswire reported on a NETL research project on June 8^th. Federal researchers are testing whether hydraulic fracturing fluids can travel thousands of feet via geologic faults into drinking water aquifers close to the surface. A fault from the Marcellus Shale formation, which is thousands of feet below the surface, could provide “a quick pathway for fracking fluids to migrate upwards,” said Richard Hammack, a spokesman for the US Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL).

The experiment is being carried out at a site in Greene County in southwestern Pennsylvania where conventional shallow wells were drilled and long since capped, NETL said on its website. The study will provide regulators, landowners and the general public “an unbiased, science-based source of information which can guide decisions about shale gas development,” NETL said. The study also will help the industry “develop better methods to monitor for undesired environmental changes” and develop technology or management practices to address the changes.

Speaking at a congressional briefing in Washington, Hammack said faults “form a plane that allows fluids to move up through the frack.” Some faults can be easily seen and avoided, but Hammack said some faults are not easily detected and could extend from the Marcellus Shale formation into other formations close to the surface. The testing “is taking place right now,” Hammack said. “It should be completed next week. Within a month, we will have the micro-seismic data that will show how high fracture fluids have migrated upwards” toward the surface.

>>>>> …

Critical comments on the above described project have come from the Marcellus Drilling News (MDN), as posted on their web-site under the title “NETL Study of Faults & Fracking, Are We Being Set Up?”

MDN notices a couple of interesting things about this study by the NETL. First, this is the first time MDN has heard of this study being conducted. For such an important study, you would think it would be well-publicized. Coming “out of nowhere” raises a red flag. Why did NETL hide the fact they were conducting this study?

Second, proclaiming Greene County, PA the perfect spot to conduct these tests, and that it can serve as a proxy, as an example for all geographies, strikes MDN as stretching the facts the fit the science. Not all geographies are the same. The results of the NETL study in Greene County can conceivably be relevant for that part of PA—but not even for all of PA, nor for NY, nor for OH or WV either. How prevalent are these faults? Are they more numerous in some geographies and not others?

The announcement that the results from this study will be ready within a month and “then we’ll know, we’ll have unbiased science” sure feels like a set up. It feels like the researchers have already jiggered the results the way they want them to go and they know what those results will be, and it won’t be favorable to the drilling industry.

Good science, real science (and not junk science) is repeatable, measurable, and testable. So before we simply accept the results of the NETL study as the authoritative, last word on whether or not fracking fluids can migrate, other scientists will need time to test and verify those results.

>>>>> …

Of course, this is good logic but it works both ways.  If no problems are found with these particular wells or in this particular county, it does not mean that contaminating faults are not present with other wells, in other counties or other States. Greene County, in the southwest corner of Pennsylvania, borders three counties of West Virginia, namely Monongalia, Wetzel and Marshall counties. So clearly, the results of the NETL study will be looked at closely here in West Virginia.

According to an article in the USA Today, the EPA announced yesterday that groundwater beneath the town of Pavillion, WY, was polluted with compounds associated with fracking chemicals.  Residents complain that the water reeks of chemicals, and were advised last year not to drink the water after it was found to contain hydrocarbons.

Peer reviewed studies of the issue still need completed, and it should be noted that the unique geology underlying Pavillion is suspected of contributing to the cause of the pollution.

A report showed that 464,231 gallons of fracking fluid containing the toxic chemical 2-BE were injected into West Virginia gas wells and 747,416 gallons of 2-BE bearing fluids were employed in Pennsylvania.  This is the same chemical that showed up in contaminated well water in Pavillion, Wyo. and is likely the cause of the adrenal tumor that Laura Amos of Garfield County, Colo. developed after her well water was contaminated by Encana drilling activity.

You might feel like you are in Toxicology class as you review the Congressional Committee on Energy and Commerce’s recently released report which reveals information regarding chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing.  The information for the report was collected by the Committee from 14 oil and gas service companies which submitted requested data on fracking products used between 2005 and 2009.  This is a very lay-friendly report with only 12 pages of text and tables.  The remaining 18 pages are lists of chemicals.  However, for those who just want the highlights, I’ve tried to pick out them out for this post.

“Between 2005 and 2009, the oil and gas service companies used hydraulic fracturing products containing 29 chemicals that are (1) known or possible human carcinogens, (2) regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act for their risks to human health, or (3) listed as hazardous air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.”    Of the 29 chemicals,  13 are classified as carcinogens, 8 are Safe Drinking Water Act regulated chemicals, and 24  are hazardous air pollutants.  Many of the chemicals fall into more than one category.  (See chart on page 8 of report.)

Methanol, a toxic air pollutant,  was the most widely used chemical during the time period studied, as measured by the number of compounds containing the chemical.  Other hazardous air pollutants included hydrogen fluoride (systemic poison, potentially fatal), lead (reproductive disorders, high blood pressure, nervous system disease, especially among children), hydrogen chloride and ethylene glycol.

The chemical called 2-BE (shorthand for 2-butoxyethanol) is another common toxic constituent.  It is used as a foaming agent or surfactant.  ”According to EPA scientists, 2-BE is easily absorbed and rapidly distributed in humans following inhalation, ingestion, or dermal exposure.  Studies have shown that exposure to 2-BE can cause hemolysis (destruction of red blood cells) and damage to the spleen, liver, and bone marrow.”   And rare adrenal tumors.  Texas topped the list of states with 12 million gallons of fluid containing 2-BE injected into the ground.   As noted above, WV and PA were below 1 million.

Among the list of carcinogens used are formaldehyde (also a hazardous air pollutant), diesel, naphthalene and chemicals in the BTEX compound group (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene).  ”The BTEX compounds appeared in 60 hydraulic fracturing products used in the 5-year period and were used in 11.4 million gallons of hydraulic fracturing fluids.”  Most of those tainted fluids, 9.5 million gallons of the 11.4 million, were used in Texas.   Less than 100,000 gallons were used in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

“In addition, the hydraulic fracturing companies injected more than 30 million gallons of diesel fuel or fracturing fluids containing diesel fuel in wells in 19 states.”  In a 2004 report, the EPA stated that the use of diesel fuel in fracturing fluids poses the greatest threat to underground sources of drinking water.

“Many chemical components of hydraulic fracturing fluids used by the companies were listed on the MSDSs as “proprietary” or “trade secret.”  The hydraulic fracturing companies used 93.6 million gallons of 279 products containing at least one proprietary component between 2005 and 2009. …In these cases, it appears that the companies are injecting fluids containing unknown chemicals about which they may have limited understanding of the potential risks posed to human health and the environment.”

The report was prepared under the leadership of US  House Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA), Edward Markey  (D-MA), and Dianna DeGuette (D-CO).

Action was taken in one of at least three West Virginia  lawsuits against Chesapeake Energy relating to waste pits and their toxic contents.   A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order against Chesapeake Energy to stop the company from removing contaminated soil from the area of a buried waste pit on a Wetzel Co. couple’s property.  A lawsuit has been filed by Larry and Jana Rine alleging that Chesapeake created a large lined waste pond, then dug an adjacent pond and deliberately breached the pond to allow the liquids to drain into the unlined impoundment.  ”After disposal of the liquids into the unlined hole, a thicker material remained in the pond with the ripped liner,” the suit says. “Chesapeake placed the lining material over the top of the remnant waste, then covered the entire pond and its remaining contents with soil.”

The attorney for the Rines says that the attempt to remove the contaminated soil to mix with materials to use in the repair of a slip is simply an excuse to haul away the waste and cover up what was dumped in the pit.  ”These cases are common sense and common law,” said Brian Glasser, a Charleston lawyer who represents the Rines and and has filed two other similar cases against Chesapeake.  ”You can’t bury a bunch of waste in someone’s yard.  It’s that simple.”  The grounds for the suit is that dumping and burying waste is not “reasonably necessary” – the legal test for activities allowed by state natural gas laws.

Burying of waste pits is a common industry practice.  Chesapeake denies any wrongdoing.  A company spokesperson said, “Chesapeake does believe that its activities are prudent and entirely within its lease and property rights.”

Public health and environmental groups campaigned during the past legislative session for the use of closed loop systems to eliminate the holding pit system.  Groundwater contamination has occurred in the vicinity of drilling waste pits pits. There is also concern regarding air pollution from volatile organic compounds in the waste fluids.   As a compromise position, groups demanded that law be enacted to require the use of a reinforced liner system and proper disposal of pit liners.   No protective legislation was passed during the 2011 legislative session.

Charleston Gazette story, 4/14/11

Activist shareholder groups are pressing the drilling companies to reduce the risks of hydraulic fracturing, the drilling technique that is now being used in the Marcellus Shale formation of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York. Huge volumes of previously inaccessible natural gas are released while raising concerns about environmental contamination of the land, water and air.

Investor groups said recently that they have filed resolutions with nine oil and gas companies that use hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” to extract gas from shale formations usually thousands of feet underground. Many critics contend that fracking has the potential to pollute  groundwater. Various industry companies have said that it is safe.

“Oil and gas firms are being too vague about how they will manage the environmental challenges resulting from fracking,” New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who manages the state’s  public worker pension fund, said in a statement.

The fund’s stake in two of the drillers — Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. and Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. — is valued at nearly $35 million. New York, meanwhile, has declared a temporary moratorium on fracking to allow state regulators to issue new guidelines for shale gas extraction. See also this related story here.  And, the biggest disaster waiting to happen is the contamination of New York City’s water supply in the state’s Delaware Valley, described here.