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- lonesomewolf, on 11/18/2008, -1/+11Benzene? Colorless and odorless. Contamination happens at 5 parts per billion. To give some perspective, lead is considered an unsafe contaminate at 15 parts per billion. My cousin sued and won a huge judgment from a large pipeline company that contaminated their property for years. The company knew they were leaking benzene into the ground water and did nothing because it would cost money to shut down the pipeline. A county worker found the leak and reported it. Unfortunately my cousin was on well water and she developed a deadly health condition directly related to the benzene contamination. She now rarely leaves the house, has had her uterus removed, and suffers permanent organ damage. And yes, it was proven the damaged was done by benzene hence the massive settlement.
http://www.health-report.co.uk/benzene-toxic-chemi ... - inajeep, on 11/18/2008, -3/+13What a ass-backwards way of looking at things. Technology is supposed to releave us having to burn anything for energy, not to poison our water supply. You'd rather pollute the drinking water of tens of thousands or more so you can keep your uncaring ass warm during the winter months? I can only hope you are drinking from one of those contaminated wells now so you will see the bigger picture.
- Demistate, on 11/18/2008, -0/+8Thinking that gas will stay at $1.81 by next summer is really short sighted.
- Buelldozer, on 11/18/2008, -3/+10Hi from Wyoming!
These extractive industries are vital to the nation, and to the health of the Wyoming economy, but they are very rough on the environment despite what the companies claim.
We need the energy, no two ways about that, but industry also needs to pull it's head out of it's butt, admit what the impacts actually are, and then develop better methods. - lonesomewolf, on 11/18/2008, -1/+7The last time I checked humans can not survive without water. They can, however, survive without natural gas - although some produce quite a large amount of natural gas on their own.
- VigRoco, on 11/18/2008, -0/+6Why don't we just not drill for anything and just let ourselves run out of energy?
- inactive, on 11/18/2008, -0/+5Wait a second, natural gas is not a fossil fuel.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/08/24/pelosi-on ...
FTA: "On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, the speaker twice seemed to suggest that natural gas – an energy source she favors – is not a fossil fuel.
“I believe in natural gas as a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels,” she said at one point. Natural gas “is cheap, abundant and clean compared to fossil fuels,” she said at another." - Buelldozer, on 11/18/2008, -1/+6Typical Digg.
I live here and read about this kind of thing in my morning paper a couple of days a week. I work with both environmental and corporate attorneys who operate on both sides of the cases. I work with directional drilling outfits, and know several drill owners. I've had lobbyists for both the Oil and Gas Commission and various environmental groups in my home.I know more about what's going on than almost anyone in the country, with the exception of the people who are out in the field every day.
What do I get for sharing? Dugg down. :::rolleyes::: - Buelldozer, on 11/18/2008, -1/+5NATURAL gas you boob, read the article.
- evets616, on 11/18/2008, -0/+4FTA: "But documents obtained by ProPublica show that the EPA negotiated directly with the gas industry before finalizing those conclusions, and then ignored evidence that fracking might cause exactly the kinds of water problems now being recorded in drilling states."
I know that's the industry slang for "fracturing", but damn that's funny. - inajeep, on 11/18/2008, -5/+9Gee, Halliburton screwing us again. How unforeseen.
- bigbenorr, on 11/18/2008, -0/+4I am pretty sure that many people would die without fossil fuels. What do you think we use to generate the electricity that pumps water from the ground to our homes? And petroleum is used to deliver food to us.
Sure, some people would survive without gas and oil, but you probably wouldn't be one of them. - bigbenorr, on 11/18/2008, -0/+4corn based ethanol is really not a viable solution. I think e85 is a great idea but making it from corn will never be practical. e.g. why is a company going to buy $5.00 worth of corn and turn it into $2.50 worth of ethanol, not a very practical business model.
- PleaseJustDie, on 11/18/2008, -0/+4PROTIP: If the water is oily and brown and smells like *****, don't drink it.
- NonLeftistDiggr, on 11/18/2008, -1/+4OMG! We have to do something, let's form a socially consious blog.
- FLUX, on 11/18/2008, -0/+3The article finds no evidence at all that the fracking is causing these problems and I find it hard to believe that it is
Natural gas is found in formations from 2000-15000 feet under ground most ground water in the US is not over 400 feet and most is just over 100 feet so how is fracturing a rock 3 miles below the surface of the earth and under a dense layer of capping stone (a thing necessary for the gas to collect ) going to propagate cracks that far. Also fluoride and natural gas are common elements found in ground water across the country and has no connection to drilling the writers supposition that they are show that this piece is highly biased and that the writer did little if any fact checking making the whole article suspect - JCEEZ, on 11/18/2008, -0/+3funny thing is no one gave a ***** about alternative fuels before it became $4 a gallon. To be honest I wouldn't mind seeing gas get up to $15 a gallon so we can see some real innovation and change. (I drive 100 miles a day). There are things more important then a few extra dollars. Long term solutions > short-term alleviation.
- lonesomewolf, on 11/18/2008, -1/+4@Demistate. I am sorry. Did you provide a solution? Where are you buying $6+ a gallon gas exactly in the USA?
- Buelldozer, on 11/18/2008, -0/+2I AM an Engineer bigben!
- Sean42, on 11/18/2008, -1/+3I thought your post was rational. I would like to see us move to renewables, but in the meantime (10-15)years, we are going to rely more on natural gas, especially if we are to get off of the oil habit so I agree with you that "industry also needs to pull it's head out of it's butt, admit what the impacts actually are, and then develop better methods."
- rpelayo, on 11/18/2008, -0/+2How much energy do you think is required to clean the contamination ? Way more than is released in the drilling. And how about the treatment for leukemia your family will need. How much energy do you think that will take ???
- havok3114, on 11/18/2008, -2/+4So tell an entire family who develops leukemia because their well was polluted by a company trying to make a buck instead of doing something harder, costlier, yet safer about how you don't want to pay $6 a gallon for gas.
FTA "In July a hydrologist dropped a plastic sampling pipe 300 feet down a water well in rural Sublette County, Wy. and pulled up a load of brown oily water with a foul smell. Tests showed it contained benzene, a chemical believed to cause aplastic anemia and leukemia, in a concentration 1,500 times the level safe for people."
Water is the most precious natural resource on the planet and one of the few the biosphere ABSOLUTELY must have to survive. Every day the reserve of fresh water diminishes and we simply do not have the drive or technology to replace it. It doesn't help that we constantly pollute it or waste it. - IAmTheGuy, on 11/18/2008, -2/+4The headline makes it seem like we should drill for gas and pollute water. I can understand why we should drill for gas, but I don't see why polluting the water supply is necessary.
- partrow, on 11/18/2008, -0/+2Oh please. If you knew anything about drilling you would know that the drilling mud is used in a controlled, closed loop system.
- Midtowner, on 11/18/2008, -0/+2The EPA needs to do its effing job. When an administrations appoints 'business friendly' hacks who don't carry out their congressional mandates, it hurts a lot of people in the long run. If Haliburton and others are responsible for dumping these chemicals, they need to be brought in under CERCLA and made accountable for fixing the problem.
The whole purpose of our environmental statutory regime is to make it cost prohibitive to be reckless with your pollution. The EPA, by 'helping' industry is just setting it up for a huge fall down the road when a subsequent administration might decide to declare these affected areas Superfund sites.
- Buelldozer, on 11/18/2008, -1/+3I absolutely agree that we need renewables. We have several big time wind projects going on in the state. Wind and solar are good fits for Wyoming since we have so much of both. The big challenge is how to get the electricity out of the state.
We absolutely must have more high voltage transmission lines to get that electricity to the places that want it; and both the state government and the energy industry recognize this. The problem comes in trying to build those lines.
Every time someone tries to start a project for energy transmission lines it gets buried under a blizzard of lawsuits from the environmental groups. It requires seemingly endless legal challenges and a decade in court to get anything built! It's completely ridiculous what you have to go through to get it done. - smcgrath, on 11/18/2008, -1/+3 Yeah benzene contaminated water couldn't be that bad, right? I mean you could always avoid drinking it. Of course you'd need people to tell you what water supplies were contaminated. That means either the company that caused the contamination would have to fess-up (and open itself to massive lawsuits) or an agency would have to test for it and let you know it was there. That sounds like a job for the Environmental Protection Agency, unless they already signed off on the root cause the contamination and said it posed no risk to drinking water.
Lets say you were able to avoid drinking the contaminated water, all clear right? That might help you sleep a bit, until you realize benzene is an organic compound and something that can contaminate the food chain. Lot of ranches around the riches natural gas mines. - dustinbolton, on 11/18/2008, -1/+3Of course not! It's "NATURAL"!
- bitsculptor, on 11/18/2008, -1/+3A company making claims of proprietary process to hide incriminating facts. Didn't see that one coming. It is covered on page 3 of the book, "Build Your Own Corrupt Corporate Entity in 21 days." Required reading for all Halliburton managers.
FTA...
"Halliburton's proprietary fluids are the result of years of extensive research, development testing," said Diana Gabriel, a company spokeswoman, in an email response. “We have gone to great lengths to ensure that we are able to protect the fruits of the company's research…. We could lose our competitive advantage.” - roadtripguy, on 11/18/2008, -0/+2Because we have the Sun and the wind in abundance here in the states and in plenty of other places throughout the world. Run out of energy....seriously?
- TVarmy, on 11/18/2008, -0/+2I like your post as well. I like the Pickens plan to a degree, and I think consumer cars that run on natural gas are a good idea, especially if they let us refuel at home. Further, if we drive up the price for natural gas, perhaps the oil industry will reduce natural gas flares (Google them, they're responsible for about 40% of CO2 emissions, and are used to burn off natural gas that can't be pipelined/compressed) and instead try to find a way to gather the natural gas and sell it to consumers.
However, it's insane that natural gas mining is ruining people's drinking water. This needs to be fixed. There's no way the companies can honestly pitch CNG as a greener alternative to gas until they find a better method.
Then again, it would be interesting in a morbid, pragmatic way to see what causes more human death/injury/illness/suffering, between these natural gas drilling chemicals and oil-derived gasoline and diesel. It'd be an impossible study, of course, because data behind oil is hard to find, and arguing something was caused by an oil company or an oil-hungry country can be hard to prove. I'd also like to see projections of how much suffering the higher carbon emissions of gasoline/diesel would cause over the methane.
I sincerely think the end solution should be to produce electric cars, which run on what the grid can best and most greenly provide, because even an electric car running on 100% coal power is greener than an equivilant gasoline car. Companies should be making plug-in hybrids now, and if the Pickens Plan is influential, clean natural gas (IE better method for drilling, or refined from landfill emissions/farms) should be an option in later models. - lonesomewolf, on 11/18/2008, -0/+2I agree. Many people would die without fossil fuels and no replacement - particularly developing nations. But, everyone would die if we don't have fresh water. That's an absolute, irrefutable fact.
- Sean42, on 11/18/2008, -0/+2"Every time someone tries to start a project for energy transmission lines it gets buried under a blizzard of lawsuits from the environmental groups"
the blame for this also rides on private property owners who do not want to see their property values go down. their opposition has nothing to do with environmental concerns, but rather, a not-in-my-backyard attitude..
a project was just shelved in western PA because of this reason. - bigbenorr, on 11/18/2008, -0/+2moral of the story: be an engineer, not a lawyer.
- TVarmy, on 11/18/2008, -0/+2I'd be a bad person to say this, but... "Here in Springfield, we have a saying. If it's brown, drink it down, if it's black, send it back."
- JohnCub, on 11/18/2008, -1/+3sadly, not uncommon. My hometown area is dealing with non-potable water due to drilling. Who is to blame? Depends on which side of the fence you're on I suppose.
http://www.ridgwayrecord.com/content/view/144018/1 ... - ImamNathan, on 11/18/2008, -1/+2all that petroleum jelly is called "evil chemicals" until it's put in a tube and sold in the gay bars all these enviro-nuts hang out in.
- xsecretfiles, on 11/18/2008, -2/+3dammit, such a tough choice, we need both :(
- Midtowner, on 11/18/2008, -1/+2CERCLA.... make the bastards pay.
- bigbenorr, on 11/20/2008, -0/+1Sweet! me too. *fist bump*
- k3rfuffl3, on 11/18/2008, -1/+2Pure drinking water is a relatively scarce resource. Combined with global climate change who knows which rivers will dry up like in Australia. Plenty of farmer suicides there to show there is climate change occurring at a man-made rate.
- inajeep, on 11/18/2008, -5/+6Well Mr. Opec, what makes this fake news?
- humanstruggle, on 11/18/2008, -1/+2i despise the Halliburton company of crooks. they are guilty of defrauding the US government in Iraq and they owe the US big time.
- ImamNathan, on 11/18/2008, -0/+1All that they 'put' in the water used for drilling, is the stuff that comes from the earth they are drilling through. They don't actually "drill' holes, they blast holes with high pressure water, which comes right back up the hole with bits of dirt and rock, and whatever minerals that are in it, lts of nickle. This water then goes to a retaining tank, where the solids settle, the water is pumped to another holding tank where is is further clarified,, then filtered and reused in the drill head, starting the cycle all over again.
So much for all those "secret chemicals' enviro-nut alarmists envision they use. - dragon76, on 11/20/2008, -0/+1If the health of your economy is based on a non-renewable resource, it was never healthy to begin with.
- liquidgus, on 11/18/2008, -1/+2I think it's just Halliburton's patent that they reference. I don't think it's fair to blame this on Halliburton entirely, since there are at least half a dozen "hydraulic fracture" companies in Wyoming alone. Not saying any of it's good, but it there might be another company or companies to blame. Schlumberger, BJ Services, FracTec, etc.
- roadtripguy, on 11/18/2008, -2/+3I would encourage everyone on Digg to submit this article to news agencies and if we could have enough public exposure to this issue it might actually have a positive effect on the industry's trying to keep all this a secret. Surely if we bomb the newspapers with this someone will print it if not put it on the nightly news. Sure I'm being an optimist but why not try?
- Qeveren, on 11/18/2008, -1/+2Externalities, baby.
- cawpin, on 11/18/2008, -7/+7Real news is precious, don't allow to pollute it.
Buried. -
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