Have you seen the maps showing the fracking in Arkansas?

Wells-Western AR - 3/11 Credit: StopArkansasFracking.org

Have you seen the maps that show the number of natural gas wells using hydraulic fracking in central and western Arkansas? I certainly don't remember seeing them on front pages of the local papers or on the nightly news. As of May 2011, the Arkansas Oil & Gas Commission reported over 3,362 natural gas wells drilled in "The Natural State" and another 650 wells already permitted. The two maps of Central and Western Arkansas show the extent of hydraulic fracking  as of March 2011. (Click each map to enlarge) Each green dot shows an active well, already fracked and that may be fracked many times. The yellow dots are wells drilled but not yet fracked. The red dots are permitted well sites not yet drilled. The two maps show a lot of green dots that represent a lot of money and political influence.

Wells-Central AR - 3/11 Credit: StopArkansasFracking.org

Max Brantley, the Arkansas Times senior editor, has an cautionary post about natural gas fracking wells that suggests that Arkansas citizens should be more vigilant as more and more wells using hydraulic fracking spread across Arkansas. Brantley mentions Sam Lane of Greenbrier, AR, who has created a website with all sorts of information about fracking in central and western Arkansas. I followed the links to Lane's StopArkansasFracking.org.

Lane's home page contains a survey you can complete if you've experienced any water or other problems from the increased well drilling in your area. But the site also contains additional pages with common misconceptions about the industry, regulations,inspections, accidents and violations, drilling in Arkansas national forests, other reports,  videos and maps. Be prepared to spend a little time there. Curiosity may lead you from one link to another and Lane has gathered a number of examples and directions about how you can find even more information on the topic.

Old infantrymen tend to like maps so they can quickly get the lay of the land. I will freely admit that I had no idea of the extent of drilling being done north and south of I-40 in western Arkansas. A few friends who live to the east and south of us have reported feeling earthquakes, mostly slight tremors, in the past year. Then there was that earthquake over in Oklahoma earlier this year that was felt all the way into NW Arkansas and portions of the river valley near Fort Smith. You don't see many gas wells driving down I-40 and it's not like the old pictures of the oil boom when large numbers of oil wells were drilled side by side in great fields. Now drilling a well is much less visible unless you live close to one. 

Credit: FloridaMemory.com

As a young lad, I grew up around large corporate phosphate mining operations in Florida. I even worked to help build one or two of their plants during the summers while in college. When a friend asked his father, who was employed as a manager at one of the mines, about all the dust and air pollution, I heard him say, "Breathe deeply son, that's your source of income." So I know from personal experience what happened in the aftermath - after the companies have depleted the local resources and their profits decline and the cases of emphysema and lung cancer appeared years later, after the mines were closed.

Whether wide shallow hole or small deep hole, my concern, like Brantley's and Lane's, is what happens after the natural gas is again depleted and the web of corporations and their subsidiaries move on to more profitable areas. Who pays for the damage after they're gone. The answer is the people who breathed the polluted air or drank the contaminated water, or lost the use of their land. The same people who watched their friends get sick and die from the after-effects of polluted drinking water while their life savings were consumed by medical bills. Like the lessons learned in Florida 50 years ago and many other resource rich communities, the people in Arkansas will end up paying the major part of the bill for the corporations - the people in Arkansas who are left AFTER the corporations are long gone.

Draft EPA Report links contaminated groundwater to fracking operations...

Photo Credit: J. Schumacher

On December 8, 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency released a draft report of an investigation near Pavillion, Wyoming, that provides a direct link between fracking and contamination of ground water. Ars Technica writer Scott Johnson provides the story behind the graphs and data tables in the EPA's technical report at: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/12/how-the-epa-linked-fracking-to-contaminated-well-water.ars/1   

Arkansas and Oklahoma are two of several states where companies currently drill for natural gas using a technique called hydraulic fracturing of rock layers deep in the ground to increase the release of natural gas. Both states have experienced an increased number of earthquakes and tremors in the last year or two, and residents in a growing number of locations in the U.S. where the fracking process is used have complained of contaminated ground water. Examples include flammable gas seeping into existing water wells or evidence of chemicals used during the injection process or held in waste fluid containment areas that seep into wells intended for drinking water. Drillers have maintained for years that there is no link between fracking operations and water contamination.

In Wyoming, the waste fluid pits were "clearly a source of shallow groundwater contamination. Benzene, for example, was detected in groundwater samples collected near the pits at concentrations 78 times the health standard." The EPA study also connected chemicals found in the deep monitoring wells, with those found in drinking water wells closer to the surface. In the end, more investigations are needed including the "collection of baseline data, greater transparency on chemical composition of hydraulic fracturing fluids, and greater emphasis on well construction and integrity requirements and testing."

However, the growing anecdotal and scientific evidence connecting fracking with drinking water contamination certainly calls into question the wisdom of exempting fracking fluids from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act and granting fracking operations as categorical exceptions in the 2005 Energy Policy Act.

All Americans want as much energy independence as we can safely obtain, but the good people of Wyoming or any other state shouldn't have to live with the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry recommendation to use alternate or treated water supplies as their source of drinking water or opening windows and ventilating their bathrooms while showering to prevent any possibility of explosive hazards caused by accumulating methane. Who knows, safety in Wyoming may someday come down to no balsam scented candles while soaking in a hot tub, but nobody wants drilling companies messing with their drinking water! 

The 121 page EPA draft report, which will undergo peer review and a period of public comment, is available at: http://www.epa.gov/region8/superfund/wy/pavillion/

 FROM: Scott K. Johnson, "How the EPA linked "fracking" to contaminated well water," ArsTechnica.com, 12/09/11. Available online: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/12/how-the-epa-linked-fracking-to-contaminated-well-water.ars/1

For more information about Ars Technica, see: http://arstechnica.com/site/about-ars-technica.ars  RSS feeds and weekly newsletters available if you're interested.

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