This was my first attempt to wade through the fracking water use issues so there are some errors in this post. But, overall, I was right. They are permanently removing the water from our hydrologic cycle as I first started warning people about prior to 2007. And the water usage is much worse than what I have outlined below.
Go HERE instead.
TXS
We now know they are underestimating the water used and trying to compare apples to oranges.
When the well is dry we learn the worth of water.
~Benjamin Franklin
The Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fourth international assessment released earlier this year predicted that “drought-affected areas will likely increase“
In our quest to beat the hydrocarbon energy dead horse we are abusing our environment and depleting the natural resource that we cannot live without, water. Each year approximately 3,066,000,000,000 gallons of water is permanently removed from our hydrologic cycle through oil and gas operators causing a deficit in our available water budget.
That water is polluted then injected approx. 1.5 miles into the earth in saltwater disposal well/injection wells under a 250′ containment formation where it stays PERMANENTLY. That water is not recycled like your bath water.
“The purpose of injecting waste water produced during oil and gas exploration and production operations is to permanently dispose of the material by injecting it into deep porous formations well below any fresh or useable water that contain unusable fluid.” ~Doug Johnson,PE, Manager for Injection – Storage Permits and Support,Texas Railroad Commission.
The most frequent objection presented by those in the oil and gas industry is to point at golf courses for using water to keep grass green or people with swimming pools and I agree that we need to look at these examples to see where we can reduce water use. However, in these examples the water is still available for evaporation and is still a part of the active hydrologic cycle. The water used by the oil and gas industry is not available for evaporation and is permanently removed from our active hydrologic cycle.
“Disposing used water into deep injection wells essentially removes it from the active hydrologic cycle.”Dr. Paul F. Hudak, author of Principles of Hydrogeology
Oil and gas operators are exempt from monitoring water usage so the figures we have are best guess estimations based on information that is voluntarily supplied by the operators themselves.
TEXAS
400 Million gallons per day of waste water is produced by the oil and gas industry in Texasalone. [1]
NORTH TEXAS
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, water used to produce Barnett Shale gas in DentonCountyaverages 2,226 gallons per million cubic feet of gas. Overall, the Barnett Shale average is 1,638 gallons per million cubic feet of gas. Some estimates say that the Barnett Shale has 30 trillion cubic feet of gas. I don’t have the math skills to accurately calculate the water usage, but I get somewhere around 49,140,000,000 gallons of water.
WORLDWIDE
200 million barrels of produced water worldwide each day (Burnett 2007). [1]
200,000,000 bbl/dayx365= 73,000,000,000 bbl/yr.
There are 42 gallons in a barrel.
73,000,000,000 bbl/yr.x42=3,066,000,000,000 gal/yr
This reckless practice takes place all over the planet! Where are the studies showing the long-term effects of permanently removing water from our hydrologic water budget? What will our children and their children drink?
I remember the margarine commercial from when I was a child, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” It’s funny how things from our childhood stick with us. As a child I thought about that commercial a great deal and about the many ways man fools Mother Nature. She was angry and fought back over margarine. What might she do about this?
It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature:
Stop beating the hydrocarbon energy dead horse before it beats us
~TXsharon
[1] from a study by David B. Burnett (Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering, Texas A&M and Director of Technology Global Petroleum Research Institute.)
Injection well image from Texas Railroad Commission click to enlarge
Water cycle public domain image from U.S. Geological Survey and altered by me.
About Sharon Wilson
Sharon Wilson is considered a leading citizen expert on the impacts of shale oil and gas extraction. She is the go-to person whether it’s top EPA officials from D.C., national and international news networks, or residents facing the shock of eminent domain and the devastating environmental effects of natural gas development in their backyards.
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I’m much more concerned about contaminating ground water resources – that’s permanent.
Even if the gas industry could drain those lakes and produce the entire Barnett shale in one year, the water cycle continues forever, and barring drastic climate change, we should see about the same rainfall, which should recharge any freshwater source.
It’s true that the water gets locked up under the ground, but even the massive amounts used for gas production are only a drop in a swimming pool compared to the amount of water still contained in the oceans and available for evaporation. (In fact, evidence suggests ocean levels are rising and will continue to rise)
I would hope that the powers that be set reasonable water rules to prevent shortages that affect us surface-dwellers.
I also would like to see the RRC take a more pro-active role in making sure that what goes down these wells makes it safely down the hole and only where it’s supposed to go. The well that you helped shut in was disgustingly out of compliance.
The hydrologists and geologists I’ve spoken with do not agree with your assessment. They speak about a hydrologic budget from which we are making withdrawals. There is no research yet but they believe that this practice could actually cause more drought and they are extremely concerned.
Pollution and depletion of our water are BOTH serious concerns.
As I was reading this a commentator on the Science Channel was discussing the dust bowl in the first half of the last century. Humans abused the land until a few years of drought caused the top soil to blow away. My understanding is the national grasslands in Wise County are the result of the government buying some of this land and returning it to grass. The population of the Earth has reached the point that we would have a hard time recovering from a large magnitude ecological disaster. We aren’t harming the Earth. The planet has been here billions of years and will be here billions more. What we are doing is making it unlivable for humans.
Darrel, we are beating the hydrocarbon energy dead horse into human extinction. It’s mass suicide and I’m not a willing participant.
As fresh water is removed from the cycle, I would think it could cause a very slight increase in sea salinity since the fresh water won’t be flowing down the river and diluting the salt water. There could be a small effect here with causing reduced evaporation rates. I just can’t imagine that our activity could be of a magnitude to affect this much.
Another issue that is salient though, is that when you reduce the amount of fresh water flowing down to the ocean, you can cause harm to the flora and fauna that live there. The food chain being what it is, this could harm humans. Of course reduced flow also means that what does flow is more heavily polluted too.
Agree with Darrel in that we’re unlikely to destroy the Earth, but we damn sure could make it unlivable for humans.
All that said, it’s important that we have this discussion – because whether folks believe you about the risks or not, they should consider the consequences if they are wrong.
Best case here, we throw caution to the wind and get one year worth of gas and a hefty payday. Worst case, there’s an entire region of North Texas where you can’t drink the water, and we must bring it in from elsewhere at great expense.
Of course, I’ll be okay – the gub’mint gonna make sure my city water is safe. Folks like you out in the country… well, you’re “expendable”.
Most cities use surface water taken from area lakes. If you have keep up with the area lakes you know that is a little uncertain.
We are a cancer to Mother Earth. Now we are injecting her with poisons. We have the intelligence to avoid this but not the will.
The fresh water we are removing is water that is no longer available for evaporation and respiration that produces rain to recharge the surface water and aquifers.
It is hard to imagine but our hydrologic cycle was not designed to have huge withdrawals from the overall water budget.
This is not about believing me. The information provided comes through me not from me. It comes from scientists and Ph.Ds. I have just presented it here in a format that is easily understandable.
No, we won’t destroy the earth just our children’s futures and all of mankind and animal kind.
This is caused by greed.
As Al Gore says we need to find the moral courage.
Your footnotes aren’t working right in my browser.
Clicking on the footnote in the body of the article I get taken to Blogger to sign in.
The footnote should lead to this at the bottom of the page:
“from a study by David B. Burnett (Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering, Texas A&M and Director of Technology Global Petroleum Research Institute.)”
I have to admit Sharon that so much of what you talk about is a bit above my understanding but I do appreciate what you are doing. Now, reading this: “… is to permanently dispose of the material by injecting it into deep porous formations well below …”
Correct me if I’m wrong but porous means porous no matter how deep in the ground or above ground, so why would it be considered acceptable to inject into a “porous formation” simply cause it’s far down into the earth?? Isn’t it still gonna leak out?
Sus, I thought the same thing about the word “porous.” Incongruent with permanent???? But I didn’t want to belabor the point with him because I got the information I wanted. The intent is for it to remain there permanently but, of course, it doesn’t always happen that way.
Everything under the ground is moving and shifting all the time and injection wells fail often.
Increasing water use due to growing population, drought, and Barnett Shale development has heightened concerns about water availability in North-Central Texas. In January of 2007, the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) published a study of a 19-county area in North Texas that includes the Barnett Shale development area.
The TWDB report makes predictions of future water needs for all purposes, including Barnett Shale development. The low estimate for Barnett Shale development predicts a decrease of about 2,000 acre-feet by the year 2025 and the high estimate predicts an increase from an estimated 7,200 acre-feet in 2005 to about 10,000 to 25,000 acre-feet per year by 2025, which corresponds to a estimated potential increase in groundwater used from 3% in 2005 to 7 to 13 percent in 2025. As with the development of any estimate of future conditions, the TWDB and its contractors used educated assumptions to develop reasonable low and high estimates in light of the unpredictability of the natural gas market, which would drive future drilling activity in the area.
Great post!
Cheers,
Fiona
Hi Fiona, this is an old post so the information is outdated. I have new information but it doesn’t paintba hopeful picture.