Texas Fracking Chemical Disclosure: State Adopts Rules For Drillers

HOUSTON -- Texas regulators have adopted rules requiring oil and gas drillers to disclose on a website the chemicals they use in hydraulic fracturing operations.

The Texas Railroad Commission adopted rules Tuesday to enforce a law passed by the Legislature earlier this year.

Texas has been a pioneer in efforts nationwide to force drillers to be more open about chemical-laced water pumped into the ground to crack dense rock formations to withdraw oil and gas. The process is known as fracking and some environmental groups fear the chemicals could taint water and pollute the air.

Texas will require companies to disclose chemicals but not concentrations. Other states, such as Colorado, require disclosure of concentrations.

Comments

[hatpillbill]

02:19 PM on 12/15/2011

Fracking should be banned. The energy companies are not to be trusted and no state or federal agency will be able to monitor their operations. If they say the chemicals are not bad, why will they not disclose the chemicals as well as the concentrations ??

[ldcbl]

12:15 PM on 12/14/2011

someone who urinated into a water holding facility was charged with a crime, but to frack and put chemicals into the water system by a corporation is ok. what has this country come to?

[mhh310351]

06:09 PM on 12/14/2011

Actually no to quote you! "but to frack and put chemicals into the water system by a corporatio­n is ok."

That's when the state governments levy heavy fines; when drilling companies put chemicals into water systems!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/18/chesapeake-energy-gas-drilling-pa-fine_n_863509.html

[Froto bagits]

07:44 AM on 12/15/2011

Hey come on, Corporation are people too, it's perfectly O.K. for them to Pollute, it's just a little arsenic, makes the water taste sweet.

[Ravi Abunijad]

11:52 AM on 12/14/2011

Oh no! Regulations! The economy will collapse now!

Seriously, they don't have to do things more carefully or face any responsibility for their actions, they just have to tell you, in general, HOW they're taking advantage of your community and ruining your water supply?

Interesting how corporations are considered people, and yet, I would be arrested for poisoning a city's water supply.

[mhh310351]

11:48 AM on 12/14/2011

didn't the EPA demand the ingredients of fracking chemicals last year?

Didn't even Halliburton finally disclose their ingredients?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/12/07/usa-epa-halliburton-idUSN077965820101207

[PaulD08]

11:05 AM on 12/14/2011

Tens of millions of years of stored sunlight energy in the form of fossil fuels will be pillaged from the earth to serve 200 years of humans if we`re lucky,, The waste CO2 by products of eons of stored energy dumped into ths sky in a few decades.Water will be poisoned . humans never cease to amaze me,,We are supposedly intelligent.. But selfishness and greed seem to trump all,,

those of us who know better must fight harder,,Its nearing congressional recess time,, it`s time to get in your "Reps" faces at town halls

[Sister Bluebird]

08:43 AM on 12/14/2011

Wow, I have to run outside now and see if the end is upon us!

Seriously? Texas?

[jtrusl]

10:32 AM on 12/14/2011

Yes Sister. I live in Fort Worth and there are at least 6 drilling/fracking operations going on with in a cpl of miles of me here IN THE CITY. Greed, proposed as "need" has become a BIG impact here in CowTown and all over the Lone Star State. It has reciently recieved more attention in Wyoming where fracking has caused cracks in the earth where gas seeps up continuously. On the way up through ground water, after it filters itself along with the chemicals being pumped in to produce this pressure the stuff can actually ignight. I have seen this first hand. One such case where the tap water in a home had so much gas/chemicals in it that it could be lit with a lighter. These companys however dont seem to care whats happining to the rest of us in the future as long as they make their money now, and the government is unwilling to do much as it has its fingers in the money pot also.

[falsy]

07:44 PM on 12/13/2011

Who is going to make sure they're disclosing everything? Self reporting doesn't work.

[mhh310351]

06:11 PM on 12/14/2011

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/12/07/usa-epa-halliburton-idUSN077965820101207

The EPA has teeth.

[getoffmedz]

06:24 PM on 12/13/2011

However, drillers ARE NOT required to post or reveal "proprietary" ingredients used in drilling fluids.

FACT!

[special38x2]

11:11 PM on 12/13/2011

Yeah and they don't have to disclose concentrations of the chemicals because we'd all likely choke on the facts...this is scary stuff. Did anyone hear that there is some thought that these minnie earthquakes are occuring around areas that fracking is taking place? Oklahoma minnies come to mind on this.

[The last sane American]

08:09 AM on 12/14/2011

Then they must be doing a lot of fraccing in California.

"http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/"

What was that quote "I believe everything----------------?

[getoffmedz]

09:42 AM on 12/14/2011

Good point. Please notice that a lot of seismically dormant areas become seismically active once fracking in the area starts.

[Sister Bluebird]

08:44 AM on 12/14/2011

You know, they do print text books telling future frackers how to make their cocktails. You can buy them. And then you will know what they mostly use.

Diesel fuel and 2 Butoxy-ethanol.

For starters.

[getoffmedz]

09:38 AM on 12/14/2011

Please see the docu called - GASLAND

[mhh310351]

06:14 PM on 12/14/2011

Diesel is specifically banned.