Which would you prefer?
Landfills and septic leach fields lying hundreds of feet above your water
tables and aquifers or hydraulic fractures thousands of feet below your water
tables and aquifers? Clue: gravity moves to the core
of the planet.
I am a pragmatist. I
think that we can have good paying jobs, good taxable revenues and be
environmental. I believe that hydraulic
fracturing provides those jobs, revenues and can be environmental. The companies are working diligently and
quickly to develop fracturing fluids that are environmentally safe. But before we can have that discussion, we
must first know about our water supply.
So, let us start with water tables and depth limits
to potable water supplies, i.e. aquifers.
Across the US, the average depth of a fresh water aquifer, from which
communities drill into and pump water from, is 400 feet below the surface. The potable deep water limit approaches 600 feet, as the water
begins to have increasing concentrations of metals and minerals. I logged onto the City of Plymouth: Sewer and
Water Services website to see what minerals were in my water. The front page of the website (fact sheet, if
you will) informs me that our aquifers are the Prairie Du Chien-Jordan and
Prairie Du Chien Group and that the water wells are 302 to 473 feet deep. The water is hard due to the presence of both
iron and manganese. There are 24 grains
per gallon, requiring treatment by the city to improve quality. The minerals are removed through
filtering. A corrosion inhibitor is also
added to the water to protect home pipes.
The water is disinfected using chlorine and fluoride is added for dental
protection. Hold on – a corrosion
inhibitor, what’s that? and that can’t be good.
So, I dug a little deeper and downloaded the 2012
Plymouth Water Report. In my water there
are the following (bold are the “contaminants” and in parentheses are typical
sources of “contaminants”): alpha
emitters (erosion of natural deposits), arsenic (erosion of natural deposits; runoff from orchards; runoff
from glass and production wastes), barium
(discharge of drilling wastes; discharge from metal refineries; erosion of
natural deposits), combined radium
(erosion of natural deposits) fluoride
(added by the state to promote strong teeth; erosion of natural deposits;
discharge from fertilizer and aluminum factories), haloacetic acids (by-product of drinking water disinfection), TTHM – total trihalomethanes (by-product of drinking water disinfection), chlorine (water additive used to
control microbes), copper (corrosion
of household plumbing systems; erosion of natural deposits), lead (corrosion of household plumbing
systems; erosion of natural deposits), iron and manganese already mentioned in
the above paragraph. WOW. That is a lot of bad stuff.
Please notice that almost every “contaminant” is
sourced from the erosion of natural deposits, except for Haloacetic acids,
trihalomethanes, fluoride and chlorine, which
are introduced by the city/county/state.
You might ask what are trihalomethanes? They are chemical compounds in which three of
the four hydrogen atoms of methane (CH4) are replaced by halogen atoms. Many trihalomethanes find uses in industry as
solvents or refrigerants. They are also
environmental pollutants, and many are considered carcinogenic. WOW.
This is what is in my water and it is introduced by our local sewer and
water utility.
There you have it.
That’s what in the water and most of the contaminants occurs through
natural erosion of deposits and some is introduced by the sewer and water
utility.
Now let’s address what is above your water tables and
aquifers. I will begin with the cartoon cross-section
of a septic system. This is a rendition
of a septic leach field/drainfield. When you flush the toilet, the fluids pass
through the septic tank, where most of the solids are captured. The lighter solids and liquids are
transported to the drainfield. The soil absorbs the lighter solids and some of the liquids, with the balance of the
effluent being purified by the deeper soil layers.
The water then enters as theoretically purified groundwater. All of this relies on GRAVITY and SOIL ABSORPTION to purify the effluent. Remember that.
Source: Google Images
Next move to landfills, which is one of my biggest pet peeves. Below
is the second cartoon of a cross-section of a landfill. Environmentalists are so preoccupied with the
hydraulic fracturing issues, that they have completely ignored many other more
pressing issues. Landfill waste should
be at the top of that list.
Source: Google Images
The following is from the EPA website. Municipal
solid waste landfills (MSWLFs) receive household waste. MSWLFs can also receive
non-hazardous sludge, industrial solid waste, and construction and demolition
debris. All MSWLFs must comply with the federal regulations in 40 CFR Part 258
(Subtitle D of RCRA), or equivalent state regulations. Federal MSWLF standards
include:
• Location restrictions—ensure that landfills are built in
suitable geological areas away from faults, wetlands, flood plains, or other
restricted areas.
• Composite liners requirements—include a flexible membrane (geomembrane)
overlaying two feet of compacted clay soil lining the bottom and sides of the
landfill, protect groundwater and the underlying soil from leachate releases.
• Leachate collection and removal systems—sit on top of the composite liner and
removes leachate from the landfill for treatment and disposal.
• Operating practices—include compacting and covering waste
frequently with several inches of soil help reduce odor; control litter,
insects, and rodents; and protect public health.
• Groundwater monitoring requirements—requires testing
groundwater wells to determine whether waste materials have escaped from the
landfill.
• Closure and postclosure care requirements—include covering
landfills and providing long-term care of closed landfills.
• Corrective action provisions—control and clean up landfill releases
and achieves groundwater protection standards.
• Financial assurance—provides funding for environmental
protection during and after landfill closure (i.e., closure and postclosure
care).
What’s not listed by the EPA in this description of what a
landfill is supposed to have, are the contaminants. For decades all kinds of things went into the
waste stream: batteries (lead, zinc,
lithium, acid, etc.), electronics (with cadmium and other deleterious metals),
light bulbs (CFL with mercury), rotting food (noxious microbes, and other
biological hazards), medical wastes from home (to numerous and deleterious to
include), oil-based paints, turpentines, all kinds of cosmetics, and the list
is end-list. We are told that the
liners and detection systems must be in place and that they work. Do they? As your surface waters, lakes, ponds and oceans, get polluted, the reliance and dependence on water tables and aquifers increases. Do you want this junk sitting above your drinking water supply?
Remember that I said above, “All of this relies on GRAVITY
and SOIL ABSORPTION to purify the effluent.”
How is it that it does not apply to hydraulic fracturing? If gravity and soil absorption work for septic leach fields effluent, why would it not work in reverse? Sediments would purify drilling fluid
effluent, which I know is much less toxic (hydraulic fracturing fluids are 99% water with the 1% being non-water; I wish that the landfills and septic systems were 99% water and 1% non-water) than what is sitting on top of my
water tables and aquifers and gravity is impacting them every second, of every
minute, of every hour, of every day, of ever year; pulling those cadium, lead,
terpentines, medical wastes closer to your water source. Now, let’s put some more perspective on this. While the landfills and septic leach fields are within several hundred feet of your water source, with gravity constantly acting on them, hydraulically fractured holes are thousands of feet below your water source, with the same gravity constantly acting on them.
As the below cartoon shows, the oil and gas
companies are required, through state regulations, to run casing, well below the water table and aquifers. The casing is cemented (using natural
resources) in place. The cemented steel casing can be from 1,000 feet to over 3,000 feet long in order to protect water tables and aquifers from the
production of oil and gas from below.
Next, most hydraulic fracturing occurs several thousands of feet to
15,000 feet below the water tables and aquifers. Frac fluids rise only during hydraulic fracturing,
once the fracturing is complete, the pressure drops and the fluids flow back
into the pipe and are pumped back to the surface, where it is recovered. The companies know volumetrically how much is
sent down the hole and how much is recovered.
Gas does rise, but many forget or simply don’t know that
shales are typically impervious and impermeable. They act as road blocks to migrating gas. Shales are ductile at heat and temperature. What does that mean? It means that as the geothermal gradient (different in each depositional basin) increases, temperature increases. As depth increases, so does pressure. Temperature and pressure impact shales by making them ductile, or slightly plastic, thereby healing fractures. The hydraulic pressure needed to fracture the
overlying lithostatic pressure to the surface, is not possible with current
technology. But does anyone tell you
this. No, it is not in their
interest.
Sources: Google Images
