Does Fracking make you water flamable?
One of the most sensationalized and captivating images from GasLand is when a man in Colorado says that after a company used hydraulic fracturing he was able to light his faucet on fire.
This was purported to have been caused by local hydraulic fracturing operations in the nearby area.
In an article headed byRobert B. Jackson (Nicholas Professor of Environmental Sciences, Duke University Cited 23468 as of 3/18/2013) he addresses some of the statements made in the movie.
"Well, a new peer-reviewed study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides strong evidence that the flaming faucet phenomenon is real.
The study by scientists at Duke University found high levels of methane in drinking water wells within a kilometer of gas wells in Pennsylvania and New York, compared with water supplies up to three km away. On average, the report says, methane concentrations were 17 times higher in water supplies near fracking operations, and "within the defined action level… for hazard mitigation recommended by the US Office of the Interior." The authors point out that while "dissolved methane in drinking water is not currently classified as a health hazard for ingestion, it is an asphyxiant in enclosed spaces and an explosion and fire hazard."
This does point to damning evidence of a possible link between elevated methane levels and recent fracking in the area.
The researchers also found telltale chemical markers indicating the gas was in fact from the deep shale reservoirs targeted by the fracking operations and not from sources closer to the surface.
The authors say their results "suggest important environmental risks accompanying shale-gas exploration worldwide."
"Interestingly, the researchers did not find any traces of fracking chemicals in these water supplies. That suggests to them that the gas is leaching not from the fracking process itself but either from disturbances in rock formations between the deep shale and the shallow aquifers, or from the gas wells themselves."
http://www.pri.org/stories/science/energy/burning-water-contamination-and-natural-gas-fracking.html
This was purported to have been caused by local hydraulic fracturing operations in the nearby area.
In an article headed byRobert B. Jackson (Nicholas Professor of Environmental Sciences, Duke University Cited 23468 as of 3/18/2013) he addresses some of the statements made in the movie.
"Well, a new peer-reviewed study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides strong evidence that the flaming faucet phenomenon is real.
The study by scientists at Duke University found high levels of methane in drinking water wells within a kilometer of gas wells in Pennsylvania and New York, compared with water supplies up to three km away. On average, the report says, methane concentrations were 17 times higher in water supplies near fracking operations, and "within the defined action level… for hazard mitigation recommended by the US Office of the Interior." The authors point out that while "dissolved methane in drinking water is not currently classified as a health hazard for ingestion, it is an asphyxiant in enclosed spaces and an explosion and fire hazard."
This does point to damning evidence of a possible link between elevated methane levels and recent fracking in the area.
The researchers also found telltale chemical markers indicating the gas was in fact from the deep shale reservoirs targeted by the fracking operations and not from sources closer to the surface.
The authors say their results "suggest important environmental risks accompanying shale-gas exploration worldwide."
"Interestingly, the researchers did not find any traces of fracking chemicals in these water supplies. That suggests to them that the gas is leaching not from the fracking process itself but either from disturbances in rock formations between the deep shale and the shallow aquifers, or from the gas wells themselves."
http://www.pri.org/stories/science/energy/burning-water-contamination-and-natural-gas-fracking.html
Is there some other possible explanation?
Dr. Michael Economides claims in an article he wrote for Forbes online magazine in the Investing section that, "The only way that drilling could have caused communication is through the vertical well bore itself which is cemented and cased. Millions of wells have already been drilled throughout the world, of which only a handful have experienced accidental leaks into water aquifers– a percentage smaller than a person’s chances of being struck by lightning in fact. In the rare instances of a leak to the surface, energy companies alert and voluntarily evacuate residents while the safety of the site is evaluated.
Occurrences of flammable tap water, if not the result of existing gas transport pipelines, can be explained by totally unrelated gas leaks that occasionally occur around coal beds, which are far closer to the surface than natural gas deposits. Coal reservoirs contain methane. This is the same gas responsible for recent coal mine accidents, and it can infiltrate the water reservoir if there is too much pumping, which creates a pressure draw down."
While this does give reasoning for how or why the faucet was able to be lit on fire it does start from a questionable premise. The paragraph before this statement shows him saying, "Any interchange between the two, if it were possible, would have happened already in geologic time, measured in tens of millions of years, not in recent history." This seems to ignore the fact that the underground structure wouldn't be the same as it had been for the past tens of millions of years since it was just fractured which caused new pathways and openings for the gas to escape.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2010/04/22/slurring-natural-gas-with-flaming-faucets-and-other-propaganda/
http://blogs.forbes.com/people/meconomides/
Another explanation of how this happened could be that the evidence was faked to make the movie more sensational. Regardless of whether or not the footage is genuine doesn't change the fact that it is a graphic depiction of the fears of fracking. Other countries point to this video clip as anecdotal evidence of the dangers of hydraulic fracturing.
A more logical explanation of how and why the family was able to light their faucet on fire is that they had always been able to light it on fire. The area where the flaming faucet was filmed has documentation going back to 1973 of having "troublesome amounts of methane in the aquifer"
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/02/17/state-department-promotes-debunked-fracking-documentary/
This is a link that shows the author of the above article asking Josh Fox about these discrepancies at a screening of GasLand.
http://vimeo.com/24628804
Phelim McAleer points out that in the recent Matt Damon movie "Promised Land", that the story had to be changed because the villains in the fracking debate were not the real villains. He gives multiple examples of victims of fracking being exposed as false. He even purports that a potential source material for the movie was found to be putting forth fraudulent claims and this caused the movie to be rewritten.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/for_his_next_escape_x46uFSONrAaCey67ZzZV0I