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Backyard geysers caused by fracking helps local economy

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Looking on the bright side, these new geysers caused by drilling could help the local economy with increased tourism.

Gas drilling triggers backyard geysers in Harrison County WV

 

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.

Comments

  1. Andy Mechling says

    Does this make sense to any of you? It leaves me baffled. Maybe some of you industry-types can straighten me out here. The article says:

    “The Department of Environmental Protection says Colorado-based Antero Resources was in the early stages of drilling and was using only water when it hit an aquifer. When it pressurized the well, it re-pressurized the old water wells, too.”

    Is this standard practice? Why would they pressurize a well, at the early stages of drilling, upon hitting an aquifer. Also, at which stage do they just use water, and not drilling fluids?

    Please advise.

    • TXsharon says

      Sometimes they claim to use only water. How would we know? They don’t have to tell us and no one is watching.

      Here are some additional questions from an engineer:

      – how close the old water wells were to the gas well and what pressures were being used at the gas well head
      – whether the pressure was increased beyond normal pressures and for how long
      – how much pressure does it take to create a 12 foot geyser at XXX distance away from gas well
      – what was in the “water” used to pressure the well
      – why were they pressuring the well? was it to keep the aquifer from flowing into the wellbore during drilling and if so, don’t they have to do that on every well that intersects an aquifer?
      – if they used normal drilling procedures and created geysers – what does that mean when they drill the same way in other areas that do not have old wells close by? does that mean the drilling fluid enters the aquifer at such pressure and volume that it moves the groundwater a significant distance without anyone really knowing?
      – how long did the geysers flow?
      – did the driller know he was causing a geyser? or did they find out after the fact?

  3. Anonymous says

    Just one possibility.
    Drilling surface casing hole using water as drilling fluid, went down deeper and hit a higher pressurized formation (without surface casing being set yet) which produced fluid or gas. Tried to control flow to the surface by over pressuring at the surface. The over pressurized water migrated to the nearby water wells via water aquifers–and here is the problem.