After the Gas Rush (Part 2)

The natural gas industry uses millions of gallons of fresh water for its hydraulic fracturing process, water that becomes contaminated with a witches brew of assorted toxins, carcinogens and low-level radioactive materials. This rising tide of toxic waste water is sometimes disposed of in deep underground wells and is suspected of triggering minor earthquakes in places like Ohio, as NRDC geologist Briana Mordick has blogged.    

NRDC Journey OnEarth producer Roshini Thinakaran and cameraman/editor Zak Wenning got rare footage of this waste water during a behind-the-scenes tour of a Pennsylvania  gas drilling recycling plant, where waste water from fracking operations is processed and toxic contaminants are carted off to landfills for disposal.

 

NRDC Journey OnEarth

As new shale gas wells have mushroomed across the country, state officials are increasingly worried about what to do with the growing streams of toxic-laden waste--called flowback water--that are by-products of fracking operations. Watch this video and ask yourself; is this the best way to use of our precious fresh water resources?

 

Follow Rocky Kistner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rockyatnrdc

Comments

[cosmicdart]

04:48 PM on 01/19/2012

Why is dirty gas so important? A trillion dollars worth of thin-film solar panels would generate A trillion watts of electric power. That's enough to power 270,000,000 homes. We just spent five trillion dollars on war over the last ten years. We have the money for war, but not for renewable energy. We'll spend another five trillion dollars for war over then next ten years. I live in the land of the dodo birds! We need a time of peace! Why are people so violent?

[mhh310351]

02:32 PM on 01/19/2012

"Watch this video and ask yourself; is this the best way to use of our precious fresh water resources?"
1 million gallons of water in the first month. Wow, that seems like a lot but a brewery will use 1 1/2 million gallons a day - every day. That's one brewery!

And the gas industry is recycling the water now. Looks like things are getting better.

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2011/10/13/gas-drilling-company-recycling-fracking-water/

[Joebeamish]

09:53 AM on 01/20/2012

Um, yeah, but you drink the fresh water coming out of a brewery, albeit with some additional compounds like ethyl alcohol added for freshness. You can drink the recycled frack water if you want - maybe you should give it a try and let us know how it tastes. I'll go to the brewery.

[mhh310351]

10:16 AM on 01/20/2012

Have you ever consider that many of us drink someone else's reprocess sewer water. Taste the same.

[Roshi98]

10:49 AM on 01/20/2012

So a single story from a local CBS affiliate station in Texas indicates a positive development? Not to be cynical but the reporter seems like he only talked to officials from Devon Energy who, naturally, glorified their recycling efforts. They were sold 700m gallons of water in 2010, and they recycle 5k gallons a day (supposedly) at this facility. I'm no math whiz but that seems a microscopically small amount of water to be reclaiming from the overall amount tainted by their process.

Good news? Hardly. More likely the result of a cost-benefit analysis made by a top polluter to polish up their image in appearing to care about the environment by investing a small percentage of their profits in this facility.

[celcius232]

11:00 AM on 01/19/2012

NRDC and the like are a bad joke. I guess in their very narrow hate world non-profit war room they feel empowered and saying "hazardous" and "toxic" enough time makes it true? They wanted (demanded) frac water recycling instead of permitted UIC reinjection or permitted municipal POTW treatment, now they even try to back door attack that with this cheesy sophmoric film clips.

[bbrecht]

03:22 PM on 01/19/2012

NRDC is not the only folk who are outraged at the way your industry is laying water to waste! In case you hadn't noticed. Oh but of course you have noticed, it is your job to notice.

[observingstupiditydaily]

03:27 PM on 01/19/2012

UIC injection? How's that working for Ohio? POTW's have been found to be unable to "clean" the fracking fluid of heavy metals and most of the salt. Pennsylvania stopped practice after finding fracking fluids in drinking water.
Aside from the people that are leasing their acreage to fracking, life in PA is getting considerably more tenuous. Want to talk about the local produce and the cattle being effected by the spilled fracking fluids and the methane contaminated wells that can be directly attributed to fracking. Tell everyone how PA which is rich in natural gas, why our gas bills are rising to the tune of 20% from December 2011 to August 2012. I think what you're trying to feed the people is a "bad joke"!

[sheila]

05:44 PM on 01/18/2012

And continuing to cheerlead intermittent, unreliable, deadly Big Wind will keep demand for dirty gas super-high while if you instead supported rooftop solar, we would see reliance on peaker gas plummet.

None of this is news, so where are the policy positions (FIT, PACE, etc.) that will ensure local, democratically owned efficiency and rooftop solar upgrades and stop wasting all our money and attention on destructive Big Energy boondoggles?

If you don't want dirty gas, ROOFTOP SOLAR NOT BIG WIND is the answer.

[energydem]

12:55 PM on 01/19/2012

You would not see gas peakers plummet. Solar is still intermittent and rooftop solar is never going to supply the baseload electricity our economy needs to function. Silly.

[sheila]

09:23 PM on 01/19/2012

really? displacing peak power with solar would not reduce peak power draw from peaker gas? that is the first time i've heard that one! or are you joking?

[mhh310351]

02:26 PM on 01/19/2012

what do we do at night for electricity?

[sheila]

09:22 PM on 01/19/2012

for now, we will continue using whatever we are currently using (depends where you are) until more affordable storage comes online for expanded solar. 50% of total grid draw is during the 4-6 "peaker" hours, though (approx noon to 6 PM), which corresponds closely to rooftop solar production hours, so if you knock that 50% out with sunshine power, you get disproportionate bang for your clean energy buck - that power is currently being provided by dirty peaker gas plants...