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Permalink Reply by Tom Copley on September 30, 2009 at 8:00am

Jasmine-- There's a decent summary of the Heitzman situation in the wiki. Not sure what's going on with Ratzel. If it's being fraced, there could be a delay. --Tom

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Permalink Reply by Carolyn on October 13, 2009 at 8:08am

It means that not only did Cabot fail to provide Haz Mat information for their own employees, they also caused two toxic water spills in Dimock, one was 8,000 gallons of waste water . It means the pipes were not properly connected. Twenty wells poisoned and two toxic spills in less that one year is not the sign of a competent company. The chemicals going into the ground are carcinogenic; that means they cause cancer. So the DEP did their job that we as taxpayers pay for, and shut them down. Unless you are ok with having chemicals in your drinking water. You can read about it in all the newspapers or go to pennfutures.org for further information.

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Permalink Reply by Gary Van Driesen on October 22, 2009 at 2:48am

Correction: This story has been updated. A description of the spill provided in the story by Vincent Fronda actually referred to a Sept. 3 discharge near the Cabot well site in question. It was several hundred feet away and separate from the fracturing fluid spill that occurred last Wednesday. The photograph that accompanied the story, which was sent to ProPublica by a Dimock resident, was also of that earlier spill. Both the photo and the descriptive passage have been removed.

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Permalink Reply by Mmmarkkk on October 22, 2009 at 7:08am

While the chemicals included in frac water are carcinogenic, so are many of the household cleaners in your home. Many of the contents of frac fluids are the same as the fluids you use to clean you bathroom, kitchen, etc. Think Formula 409, etc. So, please cease and desist your use of these carcinogenic fluids!

Lots of things will kill you in high quantities/concentrations. In small concentrations, they are harmless.

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Permalink Reply by Kurt Anderson on October 28, 2009 at 9:16am

The chemicals in frac fluids represent less than 1% of most frac jobs. Of these chemicals, all but the polymer phase are fairly inert or have proven non-toxic in the concentrations used. Interestingly, the polymer phase should be very familiar to all of us surface dwellers; it's in most detergents (Dawn, you know, the oil spill cleanup detergent?). Certainly this doesn't dismiss sloppy controls, but Cabot has had a good reputation where I worked near them out west. Part of the reason things are a bit jerky in the Marcellus has to do with a lack of qualified folks; something we western states have also dealt with. Train, observe, and train some more!

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Permalink Reply by Mike Holmstrom on November 1, 2009 at 1:11pm

Benzene is common in "produced water" and gas, and some facing fluids, and it's a major bad actor. It's so bad you won't find it in ANY consumer product except gasoline in the US anymore.

Some compounds in fracing fluids are much worse than consumer/household cleaners. Match up the MSDS of them some time. Look at fracing fluids:
http://txsharon.blogspot.com/2008/12/frac-water-chemicals-chemical....

Some companies will NOT give you the ingredients of fracing fluids, even IF your life depends upon it:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/154394/page/2

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Permalink Reply by Mmmarkkk on November 4, 2009 at 2:46am

I looked at that first link Mike. What it doesn't say is the volume of each. Plus, the list contains a large number of very common "hazardous" chemicals, like:

sucrose
sodium chloride (salt, for those who don't want to look it up)
chrystalline silica - quartz (sand, my gosh!)
ethane - a component of natural gas

In the end, yes chemicals are used. But these are used every day in other industries. Some of these are used in building a Toyota Prius! Maybe we should stop selling those death mobiles!!

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