Why the concern?

By now pretty much everyone has seen the videos of people lighting their well water on fire and some of you may have even seen the video where a representative from a gas or oil drilling company took a drink from a glass that allegedly contained fluid used in hydraulic fracturing — to ‘prove’ that the stuff was harmless.

One side says fracking destroys water sources and the other says it does little, if any, harm to the environment… so who should the homeowner believe?

Our opinion…

Regardless of WHAT industrial activity takes place in the area of a private water well, be it fracking, coal mining, gold mining, oil drilling, or maybe even commercial farming, the responsibility for monitoring the water coming out of a private well falls on the shoulders of the well owner.

With that said, private water well owners need to watch the quality of their water and alert authorities when a noticeable change in water quality occurs — because rest assured the companies potentially responsible for changes in ground water quality will not say a word about potential problems until they get caught by the EPA or called out by the public.

Simple tests the public can perform…

Opponents of hydraulic fracturing have called for gas and oil companies to release the list of chemicals involved in hydraulic fracturing for a number of years. Now of COURSE not one single company (that we know of) has made that sort of information public… which leaves many folks wondering how they will know if fracking fluid or other byproducts of the oil and gas drilling industry have crept into their well water.

Since the average person does not have regular access to laboratory grade equipment or usually feel like spending hundreds of dollars each time they want to test their well water, we suggest using the following simple water tests as indicators for when a person may want to consider having their water checked by a certified water testing laboratory:

• Chlorides
   
• Heavy Metals
   
• Total Dissolved Solids (TDS)
   
• pH & Alkalinity

Drastic changes in the above water quality parameters may indicate that some sort of contamination of the well water source has occurred and that a well owner may want consider having a certified water testing laboratory perform a more thorough, complete analysis for contaminants not detectable using home water test kits.

Water pressure dropped at the fracking site and negatively interfered with the drilling process. Coincidentally, water pressure dropped for local residents and they also started noticing a milky appearance to the water coming out of their wells.

Related incidents or not related incidents?

Some argue that the two sets of events have nothing to do with one another and that both sets of wells suffered as a result of serious drought conditions rather than because the hydraulic fracturing activity required a large (several million gallons) amount of water.

Others argue that the hydraulic fracturing activity caused the aquifer level to drop by an estimated 11 feet, not the lack of rainfall. These same folks do not discredit the notion that drought conditions played a part, but they quickly reference other hydraulic fracturing sites where gas companies began drilling… and ran out of water.

Did you say millions of gallons of water?

Yes. It takes millions of gallons of water to perform hydraulic fracturing and typically that water will come from water wells drilled by the gas companies or from other local sources such as municipalities with pre-existing water wells supposedly large enough to bring up enough water to accommodate the drilling activity as well as their customer base.

Moral of the story?

As usual we suggest watching the activities of the drilling companies very closely. Their desire to extract natural gas from the ground seems to know no bounds… unless someone taps them on the shoulder and asks, “Um, excuse me. What exactly is it there that you are doing?”

For the details that sparked our decision to write this little blurb about hydraulic fracturing and its relationship with drinking water and the water in aquifers tapped by private wells, please refer to Residential Water Well Fails in Michigan After Fracking Begins Nearby.

• The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP or DEP) declared that just under 80% of the nearly 1,000 complaints/allegations it handled regarding well water contamination had insubstantial evidence tying the contamination to drilling or possibly resulted from some other source of contaminants.
• PADEP reported that just under 20% of investigations resulted in some sort of water service disruption that required the water source to get replaced at the expense of a gas drilling company.
• PADEP appears to have issued letters confirming cases of water quality contamination and obligations to correct or replace damaged water sources… but does not actively keep track of how many such letters actually went out.
• PADEP may have ‘lumped together’ cases where multiple households became affected by the same water quality incident in an effort to make the numbers reported look more appealing.
• Private settlement agreements made between drilling companies and affected land owners do not show up in PADEP reporting.
• It came to light recently that even though laboratories conducted a rather inclusive battery of testing on water samples taken from private wells, the owners of those wells received documents containing only results for contaminants that PADEP considered relevant to the process of determining whether or not hydraulic fracturing had affected water quality.
• In some cases post-drilling sampling of suspected contamination zones took place at lower depths where statistics indicated a lower likelihood of finding evidence of contamination by hydraulic fracturing activity.

• Gas drillers have agreed to pay for new drinking water wells in certain instances but did not have to publicly acknowledge that their hydraulic fracturing activity resulted in the contamination of those wells.

You have just read a few of the ‘highlights’ from an article that, in our opinion, gives a great deal of credibility to the notion that before any new fracking takes place, we need to get a few things in place: 1) Standardized and identical water testing procedures in place for pre-drilling and post-drilling sampling; 2) Better and more comprehensive system of record keeping for things like notifications of possible contamination; 3) Easier means of access for the public to any and all information pertaining to data collected during pre-drilling and post-drilling sampling so outside, third party analysts can put together their own pictures of what is really happening in regions where hydraulic fracturing takes place.

The song lyrics ‘We Have Only Just Begun’ ring through the back our minds as we look forward to the potential environmental pitfalls that may lay in store for the areas where hydraulic fracturing occurred in the absence of adequate baseline readings and, from the looks of things, accidental (or intentional) inept follow-up sampling of water from private wells.

If you cannot trust the government…

… then turn to accredited third party water testing laboratories that have nothing to gain by telling anything other than the truth. As far as WHAT to test for, well, we suggest testing for as many potential contaminants as possible BEFORE allowing gas & oil companies access to your lands.

At this time the Water Test Kit Store carries mail-in water testing packages from National Testing Laboratories, an accredited water testing laboratory that provides test results from its certified water testing facilities within 10 to 14 business days of their receiving a sample.

And in conclusion…

We do not KNOW the true consequences of our past actions, so can we please slow down and figure out how best to not make them worse?

To all those people we say, “Go ahead. Keep thinking this country will have safe, clean potable water forever. Ever notice a recurring theme in ‘futuristic’ movies? Civilizations in a good number of those movies seemed to have a limited supply of fresh water. Examples: Mad Max, Book of Eli and Waterworld (ironic, yes we know) just to name a few.”

Getting to the point, though, farmers in Kansas currently find their needs for water to irrigate their fields at odds with the needs of oil/gas companies looking to strike it rich using hydraulic fracturing in the shale formations deep below the Earth’s surface… because each fracking venture requires 2 million gallons of water.

Keep in mind that Kansas has just come off a very bad drought and municipalities in some parts of the State have already started putting water use restrictions in place. We have not even made it to the midpoint of June, mind you, so just think about how dire the farmers’ water needs may become a month from now if Mother Nature does not pull through with some wet weather.

If not carefully monitored the oil companies could very easily drain the region dry. Pun intended. Learn more about the battle between farmers and oil companies over water right in Kansas here.

Testing water near hydraulic fracturing

Unless you know the quality of your water before drilling starts, you will have one heck of a hard time proving that drilling caused a change in the quality of your water… so test your water for everything you can afford before the drilling starts!

WAYNE CO. — An environmental group is encouraging well owners to test their water before fracking begins in Hamilton, Saline, Wayne and White Counties.

The Shawnee Division of the Sierra Club is concerned about the impact of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and is offering to test a person’s water supply for free.

…WAYNE CO. — An environmental group is encouraging well owners to test their water before fracking begins in Hamilton, Saline, Wayne and White Counties.

The Shawnee Division of the Sierra Club is concerned about the impact of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and is offering to test a person’s water supply for free.

Tom Blasdel has lived in his Wayne County home since 1980, drinking from his own well. He wants to keep that clean supply in good condition. That’s why he chose the Sierra Club’s testing.

Blasdel leased his land to a Kansas-based company for the next four years. He wants to protect his land but admits it was hard to turn down the money from the lease and the possible royalties.

“We all have a stake in this. We just want it done right and to develop the resource without destroying the environment. I think they can do that,” explains Blasdel.

Barbara McKasson with the Sierra Club says the best way to measure the effects of fracking is to have a point of reference.

“In order to prove that anything is happening because of the fracking, you need a baseline test to show what was in your water before the fracking began,” says McKasson.

The group wants people with their own wells, like Blasdel, to participate in this program. His biggest concern with the drilling technique is any possible impact on area water sources.

“You don’t give the fox the keys to the hen house when you leave and go on vacation. You have to do your due diligence,” says Blasdel.

The Sierra Club will be testing water supplies from 9 a.m. until 12 p.m. June 16 at Harrisburg Township Park and from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on June 23 at the Main Street gazebo in Wayne City.

If you would like to have your water tested, call the Sierra Club at (618) 529-4824 prior to the events for instructions on how to take a water sample. ( source )

If any Water Testing Blog readers live in that area, please let us know what sort of tests get performed so we can make other aware of the sort(s) of testing the Sierra Club suggests private well owners perform on their water before fracking begins in their communities.

What if no fracking will ever take place near me?

While of grave concern to a good number of people, the dangers posed by hydraulic fracturing do not appear to have any sort of direct effect on folks not living in the immediate area where the fracking activity takes place. Note that we italicized the word ‘appear’ for emphasis.

Quite honestly, the practice of hydraulic fracturing has not existed in our society in the scale that it does now long enough for any scientists to reasonably say that it poses no long-term dangers to water supplies close to or far away from where the fracking takes place.

We simply do… not… know… what may or may not happen so regardless of where you live, keeping an eye on the quality of your water supply makes total sense. Whether the direct or indirect result of hydraulic fracturing or some other industrial activity, if you wait for the offender to confess to misdoings you will already have waited far too long and possibly taken a big chance with the safety of yourself and your loved ones.

With that said, please take the time to test your well water for basic things like total dissolved solids (TDS), dissolved heavy metals, pH & alkalinity, etc. Sudden fluctuations could indicate a problem worth investigating further.

As we always say, “It’s your water, your health… and ultimately your life!

Sanford, N.C. — Water-quality experts are testing people’s wells in Lee County to create a baseline that will help state regulators measure the environmental impact of natural gas drilling.

Teams from the U.S. Geological Survey’s Water Science Center are fanning out across the county to assess the best places to test the groundwater. About 150 area homeowners have asked the USGS to test their wells, but officials said locations will be chosen based on scientific criteria.

“We haven’t sampled in this area since the 1960s, 1970s,” Melinda Chapman, a USGS groundwater specialist, said Wednesday.

State lawmakers are expected to consider legislation when they reconvene later this month that would allow gas drilling as quickly as 2014.

Environmental groups have expressed concern about the controversial drilling method of hydraulic fracturing, saying that they fear it could contaminate water sources in central North Carolina. ( source )

As with any water quality situation, having baseline water quality test results to compare newer test results against makes it much easier to ‘prove’ that fracking mining or other activities in a region have had a negative effect on the water quality.

While the exact reason for a change in water quality cannot always get pinpointed and/or assigned to a particular cause, not having before drilling test results to compare against makes it easier for gas and mining companies to deny that their activities in an area have anything to do with changes in the environment.

Basic tests well owners can perform on their own?

Do owners of private wells have to pay for (expensive) laboratory tests each and every time they want to check their well water for evidence of contamination by fracking? Only sophisticated laboratory testing can detect some of the chemicals contained in fracking fluid but simple tests for indicators of contamination do exist.

Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) – This basic test checks for the presence of dissolved solids in a water sample. Spikes in TDS readings may occur on a regular basis but prolonged spikes with no apparent cause (i.e. heavy rains, etc.) may serve as an indicator that a new contaminant has entered the water source.

Simple meters like the COM-100 EC/TDS Meter and AquaPro TDS Water Tester make monitoring the total dissolved solids levels in samples a quick and easy process.

Heavy Metals – Since drilling involves a large amount of metal in its operations monitoring the level of heavy metals in ground/well water near hydraulic fracturing activity makes a lot of sense.

Products like the SenSafe Heavy Metals Test Strip allow users to quickly and easily monitor a water source’s overall heavy metal content — without the need for complicated lab equipment, potentially hazardous reagents, etc.

pH & Alkalinity – Keeping an eye on a water source’s pH and alkalinity also aids in determining if hydraulic fracturing activity in a region has had an effect on water quality. Sharp, prolonged changes in pH and alkalinity may indicate the possible presence of unwanted chemicals in the water source.

Meters like the pH-200 Waterproof pH Meter make pH testing about as easy as it gets. For those unwilling to spend the money on a meter, you can also use more traditional methods like pH & Alkalinity Test Strips.

Moral of the story?

Establishing the quality level of well and ground water in Sanford, NC prior to any fracking activity begins may give homeowners a leg to stand on if the quality of their water suffers after hydraulic fracturing begins.

It may also provide the gas companies with the evidence they need to ‘prove’ that hydraulic fracturing did not affect the quality of water in the area.

A double-edged blade, yes, but in our opinion a necessary one for any region considering issuing hydraulic fracturing permits to gas companies.

Multi-Parameter Test Kit for Ground & Well Water

No matter what side of the fence you sit on, enough data exists out there to make even the most adamant proponent of natural gas drilling agree with the idea that water testing needs to take place before, during and after natural gas drilling — if for no other reason than to prove a problem does not exist.

Recently we came across the second portion of an article posted by the Penn State Cooperative Extension which gives some solid advice on the topic of private well testing, when and by whom it ought to get done.

Moral of the story?

Unless you have a baseline reading of, at the very least, basic water quality parameters before any drilling activity takes place, anything that shows up in your water after drilling starts could, as far as the gas company’s lawyers will say, have existed in the water before their client’s employees ever set foot on the property.

Also, the more thorough the analysis, the better. Spring for the most comprehensive water test you can afford because the more you know about your water before drilling takes place, the better your chances of convincing a Court of Law that a problem exists as a result of drilling later.

For those not familiar with fracking, the term refers to the act of using high powered pumping equipment to force water, sand and proprietary mixtures of chemicals deep into the Earth’s crust with extreme pressure in an attempt to literally shatter (fracture) formations of shale, a type of rock, and in doing so liberate natural gas trapped in the rock. Other high powered and very complex equipment then collects both the fracking solution and any freed natural gas at the surface.

Advocates of fracking claim their equipment has excellent recovery rates of fracking fluid and liberated gas while opponents of fracking say they have indisputable proof that fracking causes potentially irreversible damage to fresh water deposits, through which fracking fluids and equipment must burrow, and that this damage comes from equipment failures and in some cases a lack of environmental responsibility on the parts of drilling companies.

Whether you side with the drilling companies (and their investors) or environmentalists and members of communities claiming that drilling companies have destroyed the water supply in various regions of the country, the fact remains that fracking has happened and probably will continue to happen until someone comes up with solid, irrefutable evidence that fracking causes wholesale damage to underground aquifers.

Moral of the story?

Until more private citizens begin testing their well water on a regular basis no one will ever know the true extent of damage potentially or actually caused by hydraulic fracturing and gas companies will have the ability to possibly walk away from ‘environmental situations’ their activities may have caused.

You simply cannot prove an After without proof of a Before. Sounds stupid, sure, but in the grand scheme of things, and when it comes to the quality of drinking water, Water Testing Blog strongly suggests that more people take an interest in the quality of the water coming up and out of their private wells… because others who see only dollars, cents and profit may not care — or may not care enough — about the safety of your drinking water.

Testing options?

Obviously you WILL need to use the services of a certified water testing laboratory. First and foremost we highly suggest consulting the US EPA Web Site which features a list of State Certification Officers for Drinking Water Laboratories. Simply locate your State’s officer and call to get a list of currently certified drinking water testing laboratories in your State.

For those not interested in having a ‘full-blown’ water test performed — which could cost many hundreds of dollars if per formed and documented (important!) correctly — non-local companies such as National Testing Laboratories offer decent, comprehensive and certified water testing services in most US States.

You can read/download the EPA’s plan of attack for investigating fracking on the EPA web site.

Does the EPA’s taking a look at the practice of fracking mean problems for the companies currently involved in that business? No, but it does mean someone may finally examine the procedures, equipment and techniques used to pump many millions of gallons of toxic chemicals and salt water through the heart of freshwater aquifers in an effort to extract natural gas.

Proponents claim hydraulic fracturing poses no risks an opponents claim it puts irreplaceable freshwater reserves in grave danger. Hopefully the EPA will shed some light on the topic for everyone.

Now that the drilling has gone on long enough, people in the affected areas have started to reap some serious financial benefits from the activity and proponents of hydraulic fracturing now say that entire communities would suffer great losses (i.e. get decimated) if companies stopped drilling for natural gas nearby.

Restaurants, stores and other businesses in communities in and around areas where natural gas companies have set up hydraulic fracturing sites have experienced tremendous gains and as pointed out during a recent 60 Minutes broadcast, one community gained over 57,000 jobs.

Proponents of fracking tout facts and figures of that nature as additional evidence that fracking presents itself as a win-win situation from all angles.

Opponents view those facts and figures as good, yes, but for how long? As soon as the gas gets extracted or vanishes for an unknown reason, so will the money and so will the jobs. Life will return to normal for the permanents of those small farming communities, right?

Sure… Except for all the drilling equipment and structures left in place because it would cost more to tear them down and truck them elsewhere. Permanent eyesores left for future generations to gaze upon and wonder if any still contain dangerous fluids that may have started seeping into the ground as the equipment sits unattended, uninspected, and without proper maintenance.

HARRISBURG, Pa. — To supporters, it’s a 21st century economic boom that will benefit millions across the Northeast. To critics, it could be this century’s biggest national eco-disaster, tainting water supplies for tens of millions.

…

Combining a new process of horizontal drilling with fracking, drillers are unlocking vast deposits there and in other formations around the U.S. such as the Barnett Shale in Texas — a boom that could ensure cheap and plentiful natural gas for many years to come for homeowners, factories and power plants.

…

The drilling frenzy in the Marcellus Shale is also credited with enriching landowners and pumping new life into trucking companies, short-line railroads, quarries and steel-pipe makers, as well as the restaurants and hotels hosting out-of-state drilling crews.

An industry-financed study by Penn State projected that the boom would generate tens of thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in state and local taxes in the coming years.

…

However, the use of fracking is raising pollution concerns across the Northeast.

While the industry maintains that fracking has been proved safe over the decades, homeowners are coming forward with tales of wells producing brown, foul-smelling water or water polluted with methane and chemicals.

In the northeastern Pennsylvania town of Dimock, a hotspot of Marcellus Shale exploration, some residents no longer use their polluted well water and can light their taps on fire because of methane they say seeped into their wells because of drilling. ( source )

Hopefully before this whole fracking thing (that almost sounded rude, right? Ha ha.) goes too far and we place weening ourselves off of OPEC’s oil and wallowing in ‘get rich quick’ wealth over the safety of our drinking water supply… someone will step in and implement some regulations the EPA can enforce.

Some have argued that the government ought to require drilling companies to pay for mandatory third party testing of well water near drilling sites and continue to pay for testing in the affected areas long after their wells have run dry.

Needless to say, the drilling companies have fallen back on their argument that hydraulic fracturing poses no risk to the aquifers through which their boring equipment must pass because of the thick metal casing and cement drilling companies use to insulate surrounding ground from chemicals and compounds used their processes.

They also say that the actual insertion of fracking fluids takes place close to two miles below the surface, more than a mile and half away from the locations of most aquifers.

Our opinion of hydraulic fracturing?

At this point we believe erring on the side of caution makes the most and that allowing hydraulic fracturing, an industry not nearly as regulated as most others that could have serious effects on the environment, to continue unchecked could result in horrifying consequences for millions of people, if not entire vast regions of the country.

Testing of the water around hydraulic fracturing sites (by third party, independent laboratories) and compiling the data will help learn more about the effects of fracking on the environment. We believe that sort of testing and data compilation needs to get done before we let Big Business and our own greed get the best of us — and allow us to accidentally poison our own wells, the very source of our existence.