Another Piece of evidence refuting contamination from fracing (note the deliberate "k" ommision)
From our friends at the USGS: http://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/121046/USGS_Report_Shows_No_E...
More encouraging news, but the unconvinced will remain so, I'm afraid...
Brian
[update]
The U.S. Geological Survey is making available two reports related to groundwater-quality, quality-control, and well yield data for two monitoring wells near Pavillion, Wyo. The first USGS report describes the sampling and analysis plan that was developed to collect groundwater data. A second report provides the raw data and information from the groundwater-quality samples.
USGS conducted the sampling at the request of the State of Wyoming and in coordination with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Consistent with a cooperative agreement with Wyoming, the USGS did not interpret data as part of this sampling effort. Results are being provided to the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, EPA and the public. The USGS data, along with data that EPA has collected, will also be available to the peer review panel tasked with looking at the broader EPA study.
“Today’s USGS reports are intended to provide additional scientific information to decision makers and all interested parties on the composition of the groundwater represented in the aquifer underlying Pavillion,” said David Mott, Director of the USGS Wyoming Water Science Center. “While USGS did not interpret the data as part of this sampling effort, the raw data results are adding to the body of knowledge to support informed decisions.”
In June 2010, EPA installed two deep monitoring wells (MW01 and MW02) near Pavillion to study groundwater quality. During April 2012, USGS, through a cooperative agreement with the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, collected groundwater-quality data and quality-control data from monitoring well MW01. While well yield and quality-control data were collected from monitoring well MW02, the USGS did not collect groundwater-quality data for that well.
Groundwater-quality samples were analyzed for water-quality properties; inorganic constituents including naturally occurring radioactive compounds; organic constituents; dissolved gases; stable isotopes of methane, water and dissolved inorganic carbon; and environmental tracers.
The sampling and analysis plan was developed by the USGS in consultation with an interagency technical team which included representatives from the State of Wyoming, EPA, and the Northern Arapahoe and Eastern Shoshone Tribes. It describes the sampling equipment that was used, well purging strategy, purge water disposal, sample collection and processing, field and laboratory sample analysis, equipment decontamination, and quality-assurance and quality-control procedures.
The two reports can be found at http://pubs.usgs.gov/ds/718/ and http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2012/1197/.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by bo boboski on -
I"m waiting for the claims that fracking causes cancer, diabeties, ms, wierd weather patterns, global warming, could even send you straight to hell!
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Permalink Reply by Jack Straw on
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What I have taken away from this article:
The EPA drilled two monitoring wells at Pavilion Field for the purpose of determining whether the ground water had been contaminated by fracing chemicals.
The EPA contended that elevated pH levels detected in the wells were due to potassium hydroxide, which is sometimes used in hydraulic fracturing. However, the inconvenient truth was that potassium hydroxide was not used in hydraulic fracturing jobs within the Pavilion field. This false finding alone should discredit the EPA's analysis.
The USGS review discovered that the EPA monitoring wells had been improperly completed, using a cement slurry that likely was leaching out chemicals, including potassium.
It would appear that the water sampled from the one EPA monitoring wells was so badly polluted by the EPA's incompetence in the drilling and completion of that the well that it appears that the EPA was the likely source of any pollutants detected in that well. The USGS was unable to utilize that EPA polluted well for their analysis.
In the well that the USGS was able to study, the USGS did not detect the pollutants claimed by the EPA to be present, notably: toluene, xylenes, isopropanol, diethylene glycol, triethylene glycol, 2-Butoxyethanol and acetone. This implies to me either accidental or intentional contamination at the EPA’s lab. Was the fox in the henhouse?
What I would conclude:
No credible evidence exists that hydraulic fracturing has created impacts to groundwater at Pavilion Field in Colorado.
Work by the EPA was so sloppy as to have perhaps crossed the line into utter incompetence. There was ground water pollution at Pavilion - but that ground water pollution was caused by the EPA's drilling of their water monitoring wells!
Perhaps the USGS should be trusted to do one additional study; a study to determine who at the EPA should be fired over this debacle.
All IMHO,
JS
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Permalink Reply by gary smith on
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we can't get anybody fired over hundreds of dead mexicans and a border agent, or a dead ambassador and three other americans. michael mukasey ,the judge who put the blind sheik in prison for life,now wants to know if it is true that the obama administration is going to release him to egypt. wall street journal sept 24. says if obama releases the killer that congress needs to act against the president. univision t.v.(spanish language tv) ,who asked obama the only tough questions he's gotten this cycle,is running a report tomorrow night on the fast and furious guns scandal,say they have the smoking gun that congressional investigators are looking for.sorry for the politics. people need to know.
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Permalink Reply by Frank on
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No apology needed. Keeping cheap oil out of the hands of Americans is just one of many examples this administration is delibertly trying to destroy this country.
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Permalink Reply by Jack Straw on
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RE: "the botched investigation goes beyond the wells"
I would expect that the water sample passed through the hands of many EPA people from when it was acquired at the well until it was in the lab's Mass Spectrometer. Many opportunities for either accidental or intentional contamination - all it would take is one person with an "agenda".
The distance between the EPA's accusations and the reality exposed by the USGS should be the cause for great concern. It is frightening to ponder than an organization which is supposed to be protecting us might instead be manipulating data in order to further a dark agenda; an agenda damaging to our future.
All IMHO,
JS
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Permalink Reply by Jim Litwinowicz on
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I read a report a couple months ago that the EPA used well casing pipe that had been treated with the same chemicals that they claimed were pollutants from the fracturing fluids. The well casings were the source of the contaminates. (I think that I saw the link to the story on GMS a few months back)
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Permalink Reply by Samuel J. Orr on
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Jack: There is a thread :Still Not Convinced That "Promised Land" has an agenda. At that thread there is a 30 second clip where Matt Damon sounds like the fool that he is. More importantly there is a long presentation by Dr. Ingraffea a professor at Cornell, who apparently worked many years for Sclumberger, and who appears knowledgable. He knows Terry Engelder (sp?) from Penn State whom he apparently respects but with whom he disagrees with about the risks of hydraulic fracturing of horizontal wells. He presentation is low key and at times technical. I cannot summarize adequately all that he said. I do believe that you are one of a very few people who could evaluate what he says objectively and perhaps offer your own evaluation and critique. There was so much information that I intend to watch the film 4 or 5 times. I believe his talk was given in November 2010 to an anti-fracking group. I do not know if the presentation lasted an hour or longer, but it was rather extensive. He did raise some good issues that any potential lessor might want to ask of any potential lessee. This post is ineloquent largely because I can not remember all the many issues that he discussed. I know this request of mine is probably unreasonable, but I do think you might be able to give some fair critique of the presentation and correct any major inaccuracies.
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With respect the politics, I have no fundamental objection to it, but those who make unprofessional speculations aren't helping the industry, the environment, nor any of the rest of America. Unless you can name responsible names and cite linkages, it would be more prudent to blame the middle management of the EPA rather than the president - any more than that is nothing but a conspiracy theory. It's highly possible that some members of the EPA were hired during one or more Bush administrations, and if they were mis-managed by those administrations, they might have too much power and too little oversight now. While we're throwing blame for slow energy development in America, let's not forget the Oil Company executives who have been abysmally negligent in anticipating and building the required infrastructure to get the new riches to all Americans cheaply. If you want a view of how incompetent and corrupt executives can be, read the book by one of the good ones - "Boone". Or do you want to replace the fading Mitt with Aubrey McLendon? And these are the guys who will write our leases!
The fundamental issue in this thread is quality control, and EPA may be doing about as well as the average energy company. USGS appears to have QA equal or even better than the best of the energy gang - a good example of government doing the work we pay taxes to insure that they can do (they work for POTUS, too. They're all just big groups of people, and we can be sure that 50% of them are below average in competence and/or integrity.
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Permalink Reply by lynn on
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No disrespect to your opinion but in the last four years we have seen how 'supportive' of clean coal this administration has been. The destruction of our coal industry and coal fired electric plants is well underway despite claims in 2008 that clean coal was supported. Read some of the executive orders signed this term. Now we are hearing from the same person that he supports natural gas and clean coal. Government officials want to keep their jobs and doing that means keeping the boss happy-that goes all the way up the food chain.
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