natural gas… clean enough to drink?
In the spirit of Blog Action Day 2009… in support of dismantling global warming and working toward another world FREE of pollution, criminalization, exploitation, and incarceration… Green Guerrillas checking in with our four cents…
With New York State on the fast track to following Pennsylvania’s lead in joining the national boom in favor of natural gas drilling (31 states strong), Green Guerrillas is working with other activists locally, regionally, and nationally to raise public awareness and get as many folks involved in this issue as possible.
The issue of natural gas development is too large and complex for a single post… so we will offer as much background as we can put together over the new few weeks to try to bring everyone up to speed… or at least incite ya’ll to look out for yourselves, and the futures of your children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
So what’s the big deal about natural gas drilling, you ask? Isn’t it a “transition fuel” that will lead the country out of its economic crisis by reducing our dependence on foreign oil and help green America?
natural gas efficiency
*Original Graphic credit: Elk River Public Utility District; updated by American Public Gas Association based on 2008 EIA data
According to a fairly recent series on NPR…
“If we were to convert half of our existing vehicle fleet [to natural gas], we would eliminate a little over half our oil imports,” Hefner contends. He and other natural gas advocates have been supported in recent months by environmental organizations.
“There’s a huge capacity of natural gas that is lying idle,” says Timothy Wirth, a former Democratic senator from Colorado who now heads the United Nations Foundation. “That makes absolutely no sense at all when what we’re trying to do is clean up the atmosphere.”
Natural gas is still a fossil fuel, and when burned it does produce greenhouse gases. Environmentalists working for the use of renewable energy sources nonetheless see natural gas as a transition fuel. One idea is to build mini-power generating stations, each connected to the natural gas pipeline infrastructure. A station attached to a hospital or a shopping mall could produce heat as well as electrical power, cutting energy costs dramatically.
Sounds good, right?
Well, the other side of the story… tells the unraveling tale of contamination (benzene, a carcinogen) in groundwater and nearby streams in Colorado,1 rural water wells in Wyoming reeking of fuel vapors,2 and nearby drinking water advisories in the Monongahela watershed in Pennsylvania.3 If all continues as planned by multinational corporations like Halliburton, the drinking water supplied to millions in NYC (presently unfiltered), other parts of New York, Philadelphia, and a large part of Pennsylvania will be forever tainted with the tasty toxicity of natural gas development in the Marcellus Shale.
There is so much more to share… but just realize this: natural gas drilling is a direct result of our collective over-consumption of fossil fuels. Resource extraction is not a new phenomenon, of course. It is just hitting a few of us closer to home and Green Guerrillas are working to “clean up” our own backyards! We are familiar with the destruction caused by coal-fired power plants on Black Mesa, in Arizona… we made a short video about it two years ago:
But now we are faced with the same cancer-causing catastrophe coming our way… so that we can all continue to consume nonrenewable energy resources at our current levels.
What exactly?
So we will pause it here with one last question… is natural gas clean enough to drink?
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – Pennsylvania’s top environmental official said on Friday that a natural gas drilling boom would inevitably result in some environmental damage including possible contamination of water supplies.
Responding to concerns that drilling in some areas has caused toxic chemicals to pollute drinking water, John Hanger said the value of the gas underlying Pennsylvania and parts of surrounding states outweighed damage drilling may cause.
“You can’t do a large amount of drilling and have zero impact,” Hanger, acting secretary of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, told Reuters. “There’s going to be a lot of good that comes from drilling in Pennsylvania, but there are also going to be some problems.”
Hanger said he could not confirm or deny reports that water in the northeast Pennsylvania township of Dimock — where many producing wells are located — is being contaminated by chemicals from a process called hydrofracturing, or “fracking,” in which chemicals are forced deep into the rock mixed with water and sand.
He acknowledged that some of the chemicals could be dangerous to human health but said that risk has to be weighed against the benefits that will come from the exploitation of what he called the “enormous” gas reserves contained in the Marcellus Shale.
“Some of these chemicals are things you couldn’t drink. There’s no doubt about that,” he said. “We have processes that go on in our lives all the time that involve these chemicals, and we run a certain amount of risk because of the benefits.”
He pledged that officials would respond diligently to any complaints about polluted water resulting from the drilling. “We are absolutely focused on protecting our water,” he said.
Energy companies such as Cabot Oil and Gas, which operates in the Dimock area, say the chemicals used in fracking fluid are heavily diluted and pose no threat to health. They also say the fluid is injected a mile or more underground, thousands of feet below the level of drinking water aquifers.
Residents in Dimock say their water has caused sickness and at times has become discolored and foul-smelling since drilling started.
Responding to concerns about gas drilling, DEP officials on Friday published a list of fracking chemicals on the agency’s website for the first time, under the heading “Summary of Hydraulic Fracture Solutions.” (here)
Hanger said the Marcellus reserve contains at least 350 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, or enough to supply the entire U.S. demand for 10 to 15 years without relying on the output of any other state, Canada or Mexico.
He predicted development of the field, which is in a very early stage, would bring billions of dollars to the state and create tens of thousands of jobs. Natural gas would also benefit the environment, he because is cleaner burning than oil or coal.
1 Does Natural Gas Drilling Endanger Water Supplies? Business Week, 11.11.08
2 EPA: Chemicals Found in Wyoming Drinking Water Might be From Fracking, Pro Publica, 08.25.09
3 Delaware River Drinking Water Threatened, Weekly Press, 09.23.09
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